Dawn No More
by Luna16
Summary: Sark, Irina, Vaughn, Will and Sydney...Rambaldi's prophecies and the tangled web of Fate.
1. Chapter 1

Dawn No More

****

Part I

__

The song is American Pie by Don McLean.

__

Bye, bye Miss American Pie  
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry  
And good ol' boys were drinking whisky and rye  
Singing this will be the day that I die  
this will be the day that I die 

Vaughn stared at the tombstones, lone and gray, standing erect among all the fallen dead. And there were so many dead. He imagined that the stones were like nameless soldiers standing at attention, guarding the bodies with too many names. He remembered a time before when he had visited this cemetery and the opposite had been true. Back then there were soldiers that had names that were guarding the tombs of dead soldiers without ones. But so much had changed since then. He crossed the rows upon of rows of tombstones, making his way to a small section set slightly apart from the rest. He finally found the grave that he had been looking for, nestled between other tombstones that looked exactly like it. Like all the others it was of uniform size and color, only the name on its face distinguished it from the rest. 

Vaughn knelt on the grass and rested his hand on the stone as fighter planes scratched the sky with while trails above him. He waited for the sound of the jet engines that would follow and they did not disappoint him. He looked at his watch, he had two hours before he was expected back at the new CIA headquarters located five miles underneath the earth, 200 miles from here. He had faith in his pilot though we would get them there in time.

__

Helter Skelter in a summer swelter  
The birds flew off with the fallout shelter  
Eight miles high and falling fast

"God, what am I going to do?" He wailed quietly to the gray stone. "She's out there somewhere, and I don't know where. And things are getting worse by the minute. They've sent in some special forces units to find him, they've tried all the small islands in the south pacific, but I don't think he's there anymore. And I think that people are getting tired of listening to me. I think they blame me for this and Sydney… that I should have been able to foresee this or stop it before it got this far…God, maybe that's why they aren't bothering to look for her. They told me to assume she's dead, but I can't. I can't give up hope like that.

__

Well I know that you're in love with him  
'Cause I saw you dancing in the gym  
You both kicked off your shoes  
Then I dig those rhythm and blues

Will looked off in the distance at the figure of Michael Vaughn, begging on his knees for a dead man's help. He shook his head sadly and plugged his ears with his fingers as another squadron of fighters flew overhead. When the screams of their jets had passed he stood up off the car he had been leaning on and got inside the back seat. The driver looked at him through the rear view mirror and asked if he thought they would make it back in time. Will nodded assertively, though secretly he was a little worried. If they did not get back in time then they would be stuck on the surface tonight and nobody wanted to be in a vulnerable position when night fell. Bad things tended to happen in the dark. He closed his eyes as he leaned his head back against the leather headrest and felt the familiar ache in his chest whenever he thought of Sydney. He still loved her; he probably always would, though he accepted the fact that she would only ever see him as a friend. He accepted it because he knew that life was tragic that way. He also knew that she loved Michael Vaughn more than anyone else in the world and though it ripped him apart to know that, in a small way he was happy. He was happy because Michael Vaughn loved her more than life itself and he would stop at nothing until he found her again. Once he would have thought it impossible to understand that when the whole world was falling into a fissure of hell that one man could be so devoted to finding and saving a single other human being…but now he was not. Now he knew that if they didn't fight to save a person they loved then it was pointless to try and save millions of others that they did not. They had learned that lesson the hard way. Now it was just him and Vaughn, trying to save Sydney so that they could preserve their own peace in this hell.

__

There we were all in one place  
A generation lost in space With no time left to start again  
So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick  
Jack Flash sat on a candle stick  
'Cause fire is the devil's only friend.  


"I'm so sorry that I stopped you Jack. I told you that I would find her and that we needed you to go and stop that second bomb. And you did. You saved so many lives that day but at what cost? You know after that first bomb detonated in South Carolina, I thought that it couldn't get any worse…they think the death toll was just over two million, and that doesn't include all the people that are going to die this year from radiation poisoning. But it got so much worse…you probably saved five times that many people by taking that bomb out in Washington, but for what? He's got ICBMs now…you saved Washington but five months ago he got Los Angeles. Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't just a part of his sick master plan, that maybe the Washington bomb was just an excuse to get you out in the open to kill you. If anyone could have foiled—heck I'd settle for understanding his plans, then maybe we would have some way of coming out of this war…now that you're gone we have no one. All Will and I can do is continue to look for Sydney while the powers that be try and negotiate. And we thought he was dangerous when he was in charge of SD-6…"

__

I can't remember if I cried  
When I read about his widowed bride  
But something touched me deep inside,  
The day the music died. 

Vaughn paused in his ramblings to rub his forehead. For some reason he thought back to the horrible day eight months ago when he'd had to tell Irina Derevko that her husband was dead. Nobody had known how she would take it and most were quite willing to admit that they had no desire to find out first hand. So he had volunteered. He had not volunteered as some sort of sick revenge for the crimes she had committed against his family. He was still not entirely sure he understood his own reasons suffice it to say that he had been the one to send Jack to his death. But she had not said anything to him. She had just stood there silently until he finished, and then she had turned and gone to her bed and stayed there for days. As far as anyone could tell she did not weep, she did not cry but neither did she eat or sleep. She just lay there, for days. When the CIA had moved its headquarters, the Joint Task Force had moved with them as well and Irina was now imprisoned in the bunker with everyone else. She ate and slept now but she still did not talk.

He checked his watch again and realized that it was late. "We have to go…I'm so sorry Jack. I will find your daughter and bring her home, I promise. Be at peace."

  
_As I watched him on the stage   
My hands were clenched in fists of rage  
No angel born in hell  
Could break that satan's spell_

Crowded in the underground bunker Vaughn managed to get to his makeshift desk before the broadcast began. Kendall shot him a dirty look for pushing his arrival so close to the curfew time but Vaughn barely acknowledged him. Will squeezed his way around the desks and agents so that he could catch a glimpse of the small TV they had set up in the common work area. The feed flickered but as the picture stabilized a tense silence came over the room. Sloane's pale face smiled at them benevolently but his eyes were dark points of fire.

"I have made you blind by blocking your satellites, I have made you deaf with the shock-waves. Don't make me kill you altogether. The United States of America has no more control over my actions than anyone else. I control my own destiny now. I want to make that very clear. I have established a base, I have troops, I have an army. I also have more bombs. Arrangements have been made between my organization and other countries around the world for peaceful co-operation. I hope that similar agreements can be made with this country. If not, then I am in a position to impose these agreements. I want all nuclear weapons that the US owns to be on stand down in two hours. If they are not, then I will pick off another city. Any attempt to find me will also result in disastrous consequences. You have two hours." The camera panned out showing Sloane standing in a dark room that looked like a warehouse. His white suit looked out of place amongst the boxes and dust, but the most shocking revelation was that he was not alone. On the floor by his feet sat a young girl, though she looked almost like an animal. Her hair was all tangled and matted and it looked like patches had been pulled out. There were scratches on her face and her lower lip was swollen and bruised. She wore more dirt than rags, but as the camera focused in on her she looked up. She snarled at the camera but the fire in her eyes could only belong to one person. The transmission cut out immediately and was replaced by white static. 

The shock in the room held everyone rooted to their spots while the static echoed throughout the compound. The cry of a child in the background broke the trance and Kendall leaned forward and turned off the TV.

Will turned to look at Vaughn and noticed that his eyes were closed. He saw Vaughn's hands lying on the desk, rolled up into fists so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. His face was pale and his lips were set in a thin line of determination. Will had never been more scared than when Vaughn opened his eyes and looked at him. Will had seen that look just minutes before. It had belonged to the devil himself. Now, Will thought that perhaps he felt scared for the devil.

__

And as flames climbed high into the night   
To light the sacrificial rite  
I saw satan laughing with delight  
the day the music died.


	2. Chapter 2

****

Part 2

__

The song is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beetles

Picture yourself in a boat on a river  
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.  
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,  
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.  


"Sydney."

"Sydney!"

Sydney heard her name being called and it was a shrill note breaking the perfect symphony going on in her head. She let her eyes focus on the grime in front of her, on the hell in front of her and the dirty floor underneath her. She looked in the direction of the door and noticed that it was open. Sark was standing in the doorway, his silhouette lit by some dim light behind him. The light vaguely hurt her eyes so she looked away. Sydney did not look towards the light anymore.

"Eat something" he said placing a metal dish on the floor. They no longer gave her utensils and she no longer required them. They were relatively sure that no physical escape was possible from the prison that they had locked her in, but they were not about to allow her any other. Sark stood there for a few moments awaiting some form of acknowledgement but finally gave up and shut the door with a bang.

__

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green  
Towering over your head.  
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes  
And she's gone.

Sydney waited until the pain subsided in her eyes before crawling over to the metal dish. She didn't walk much anymore. It was just farther to fall. She was always careful to keep her back towards the south. Sometimes that involved crawling backward in the room but she never, ever turned around. She knew, in some part of her brain that once upon a time, she always used to face the south. Sometimes she forgot why she didn't anymore. 

Yesterday she forgot. Yesterday she turned around. The south end of the room had looked almost exactly like the north end of the room except for a small window above a small metal sink. And then a balloon of pain had burst in her head. Lying on the floor, writhing in pain, she had remembered why she didn't look towards the south anymore. It might have been yesterday that this happened because the pain was still fresh in her mind, but maybe not. It might have been last year.

__

Follow her down to a bridge by the fountain  
where rocking horse people  
eat marshmallow pies.  
That grow so incredibly high.  


Sydney didn't worry about the pain anymore. She didn't see her reflection in the metal dish after she had finished her meal with her hands. She didn't see the dirt on her arms or notice her jagged, broken nails. 

She saw herself in ballroom, dancing the waltz. The lights sparkled overhead and the music was a symphony. She had many partners; lots of men wanted to dance with her. She was a princess and this was her hall. Danny would come often and dance with her around the floor and she would introduce him to her parents as the man she wanted to marry. They would be happy for her and throw a big ball and people would come dancing. The food was exquisite and the wine glasses sparkled like diamonds. 

Sometimes Noah would show up as a dashing young knight and try to win her hand. He was bolder and more physical than Danny and sometimes she would decide to go with him. He would take her on these wild adventures where he slayed evil warlords and ground them to dust. Sometimes she stayed with Danny and lived as a Queen in castle made of glass. The dreams varied and the heroes changed and many times they blended together to give her the only peace that she knew. But never did she dare to dream about another man. 

__

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore  
Waiting to take you away  
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds  
And you're gone.

She didn't know how long she'd been here. Her life had now been broken down into three stages. The first stage of her life was before she was captured. She couldn't think about this time. This time had blue skies and freedom and love…she could vaguely remember pain as well, but there had been so much pain between now and then that all she could remember was the love. She didn't try to picture anything from this stage, she would just wrap herself in the feelings of warmth and happiness and disguise them into pictures she could think about. 

The second stage of her life was her capture. She could think about specific events leading up to it, the first few days and weeks after it, but she tried not to dwell on it too much. She remembered feelings of anger, but mostly there were feelings of fear. After the anger had died down and the weeks turned into months she remembered climbing up on the metal sink to look out the small window. The window was no bigger than her palm, it was really a vent, but it allowed her the only view she had of the outside world. She could not see much, she could never see the sun directly but it had been the only thing that could give her any comfort. She had spent hours looking out that window…

The third stage had begun not too long ago and this was the stage that she knew she was now in. This was the stage of pain and sorrow. There could be no light in this stage, not after-- The searing pain in her mind told her not to probe too deeply. After the pain began to ebb she was free to resume her analysis. Now she was empty. That was what the third stage was. Now she was a shell with no desire for life. Her dreams were becoming stale and they no longer had the power to shield her. She looked at her hands and knew that they had once held love, but they too were empty now.

__

Picture yourself on a train in a station  
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties,  
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile,  
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

But now she was a little girl and she felt safe once again. Her father was home and curled up on the couch and he invited her to come join him. She quickly scrambled up to his side and gave him a big hug. He smiled and kissed her tenderly on the forehead and asked her how her day was. She replied that she'd missed him and he rewarded her with another smile. He was watching some TV, pictures she could see but they didn't hold any interest for her. So she laid her head on his lap and closed her eyes. She fell asleep in her father's lap while one of his hands gently caressed her hair.

Sark watched as Sydney stood up and walked quickly to a corner of her cell. She knelt down on the floor and he watched transfixed as she leaned her head forward and then smiled. His face held a touch of concern as she lowered herself to the floor and lay her head on her arms. He was not surprised that she wasn't crying, she hadn't cried in over a month, but he couldn't fathom the reason why she was smiling contently.


	3. Chapter 3

****

Part 3.

The song is Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin

Oh the shark has such teeth, dear  
And he shows them pearly white  
Just a jack knife has old MacHeath, dear  
And he keeps it out of sight  


Sark walked through the gray underground parking lot. He didn't make a sound on the concrete and the air was completely still. If it wasn't for the occasional reflection that he saw in the darkened car windows, he would have thought himself a ghost. Perhaps it was because of how easily he managed to bypass the security. How easy it was to fool people. He was always amazed how people saw only what they wanted to see. He had passed a handful of people and the only disguise he wore was a set of dark sunglasses. Maybe they just assumed he would not have the courage to show himself in public. He smiled an amused smile to himself and tipped his head to a young lady walking by. She smiled a tentative smile back at him and then continued on her way. If only she understood the shark she had just smiled at.

***

Vaughn rubbed his eyes while gazing at his computer screen. He felt the beginnings of a horrendous headache coming on, but he was not about to stop. Someone had digitized Sloane's last message for him and he had been analyzing it for over a month. He froze the frame when it focused on Sydney. He didn't see her matted hair, or her vicious snarl. He was staring at her eyes. He would know these eyes anywhere, he had seen her hurt so many times, but there was also a blankness to them that he could not understand. He must have been staring at her face for while because he did not hear Kendall approach until he cleared his throat.

"You've been staring at that screen for half an hour now Agent Vaughn."

Vaughn turned and gave Kendall a stone-faced look while he flicked off his computer screen. He no longer feared Kendall and could match him look for look. He had Jack's memory to thank for that. He inclined his head at the Director to indicate that he should speak.

Kendall, who did not appreciate these changes in Vaughn narrowed his eyes at him and dropped a file folder on his lap. "This intel just came in. A suspicious package was received at the post office downtown. I need you to go check it out."

"You want me to go check out a package?" Vaughn asked angrily, his expression hard.

"Yes, I want you to check out a package. That's why I asked you to."

The two men stared at each other for a moment until finally Vaughn picked up the folder and stood up. 

Kendall should have felt a small elation over his victory but one glance at Vaughn's face stopped him short. Vaughn's expression suggested that he was a waiting for Kendall to gloat so that he could be amused at Kendall's childish victory. Kendall did not want to amuse anyone least of all Vaughn, so he was forced to turned around and find someone else to bother. Vaughn let lips curl into a smile, but it did not touch his eyes.

Vaughn threw the file folder in the garbage, grabbed his coat and headed for the door. 

__

When the shark bites with his teeth, dear  
Scarlet billows start to spread  
Fancy gloves though wears old MacHeath, dear  
So there's never a trace of red  


Sark waited patiently, his mind going over the recent changes to his plan as he adjusted his leather gloves. He was a patient man so the waiting did not bother him. It was not often that he had any time to himself these days. He was brought out of his reverie when Vaughn swung open the car door and got in. Like the flick of a switch Sark was back to the task at hand. He watched Vaughn slam the door shut without hesitation. He used the momentary distraction to ready his gun and point it at Vaughn's head. He saw Vaughn look up at his rearview mirror and they made eye contact for the first time in about a year.

The two men stared at each other for a moment. Sark saw Vaughn's jaw clench in anger but the silence continued. Sark put the pistol directly up against his head before reaching forward to take Vaughn's gun from his holster. 

After he had disarmed him, Sark sat back in the seat. "Mr. Vaughn, I suggest that you drive us out of this parking lot to a nice, quiet place where we can have a discussion." Sark said in his typically calm, accented voice. He could see Vaughn pause for a moment, not taking his eyes off his mirror. Finally, Vaughn removed his own gloves and started the car.

__

On the sidewalk, Sunday morning  
Lies a body oozing life  
Someone's sneaking round the corner  
Is that someone Mack the knife?  


"Before you think to drive off a bridge or something equally foolish, please assume that I am intelligent enough to know that the information I have for you will guarantee that I will walk out of this alive. You may think that your life for mine is a worthwhile trade, however once you hear what I have to say you may not think so anymore."

Sark watched as Vaughn drove out of the garage and started driving away from downtown. After about ten minutes, Vaughn pulled into the receiving yard of a deserted old factory and stopped the car. Sark motioned for him to get out and move away from the vehicle. Vaughn complied silently.

Finally, Sark got out of the car and the two men stood face to face. He did not attempt to hide his visual examination of the CIA agent. "You look like hell Mr. Vaughn." 

"What do you want with me you sick son of a--"

"Is it enough for you to have her back?" asked Sark quietly, interrupting him.

He watched Vaughn pause a moment to process what he had said and so he was caught of guard when suddenly Vaughn launched himself forward. Sark felt hands on his collar, a blade against his throat and he was roughly pushed up against the car.

"Where is she you bastard?"

Sark met Vaughn's stare dead on with a look that told him there would be no exchange of information until he let him go. Vaughn pondered for a moment if Sark's life was worth any information about Sydney but in reality there was only ever one answer. With a look of disgust, Vaughn released him and stepped back a few paces to allow him to regain his footing. After Sark had readjusted his suit jacket he pointed his gun back at Vaughn and indicated for him to drop his knife. Vaughn tossed the knife in the ground and waited for Sark to speak. 

"She is in an old military compound located just outside Valencia, Spain. On the third floor is a prisoners block and she is in cell #31-232."

Vaughn digested what he had just heard and stared at Sark with suspicion. "Why are you telling me this now?"

This time it was Sark's turn to think. "Because we have courses that we've committed ourselves to, myself included. However, though someone may disagree with me I believe that having Sydney in our care is no longer in our best interest."

"So why didn't you just bring her back here yourself?"

"Because I'd like to remain in this world a little while longer, Mr. Vaughn."

"If you're trying to save the world, why didn't you just kill your partner and put an end to this madness?"

Sark wasn't sure if he was referring to Sydney or if by some chance Vaughn understood more than he was letting on. "I am not sorry that the United States of America has been brought to her knees. Your government was wise to stand down their missiles. However, my arrangements with Arvin Sloane are none of your concern. You can rest assured that you will not find him at the location I have told you about. He's abandoned this compound and he will have Sydney moved in less than a week. I suggest you work quickly."

  
_From a tug boat by the river  
A cement bag's dropping down  
The cement's just for the weight, dear  
Bet you Mack is back in town  
_

Vaughn suddenly felt like a man drowning. He was being given the opportunity to save Sydney. He knew that air was within his grasp but he could feel the weight of the water bearing down on him. A week was not a long time.

"I hope you won't mind if I take your car though, I have some errands to run today and I can't afford to have you tagging along."

Sark threw Vaughn a pair of handcuffs.

"Put this on your right arm and secure the other side to the scaffolding over there." He pointed to a semi torn down section of wall. 

Vaughn complied but his eyes hardly left him. Sark noticed that Vaughn's face had grown harder and sadder since the last time he had seen him. He had to stop himself from feeling a momentary sadness for CIA man but he shook his head; it didn't matter. It didn't matter to anyone whether he liked Vaughn or not, they were bound together in this bizarre twist of fate. He doubted that, even if circumstances had been different though, they could ever have been friends. They loved the same woman. And though it was infinitely more complicated for him, it still hurt that she had chosen Vaughn. 

Sark took one last look at Vaughn and got back in the car. Friends or not, enemies or not, this was the only thing he could do.

__


	4. Chapter 4a

****

Part 4

__

The song is She's Always a Woman by Billy Joel.

__

She can kill with a smile

She can wound with her eyes 

She can ruin your faith with her casual lies 

And she only reveals what she wants you to see 

She hides like a child 

But she's always a woman to me 

Vaughn was generally impressed with Will. Over the last year they had worked together on many projects and most importantly on trying to get Sydney back. Vaughn was impressed with Will's perseverance, tenacity and quick thinking. As an example, in the space of half an hour since he had called, Will had found him, found a way to get him out of the handcuffs and handled the information about Sydney's whereabouts in a calm and professional manner. For this reason Vaughn couldn't understand the fuss he was making now.

"You can't be serious Mike!"

"What is your problem with this?"

"Oh let's see. She was a spy for the KGB, she killed your father, she shot Sydney, she hasn't talked to anyone in nine months, she's a psycho! What I don't understand is why you want to go see her?!"

Vaughn's face hardened a little at the list of her crimes but so did his resolve. "Look, Sark used to work for her. Maybe she can shed some light as to why, if he was going to help her escape, he waited almost a year to do it! Maybe she won't be able or willing to help us but I have to try."

Will threw his hands up in despair and frustration. Vaughn grabbed the key from Will's hand and got in the car. "Come on, you're coming with me."

__

She can lead you to love 

She can take your or leave you 

She can ask for the truth 

But she'll never believe you 

And she'll take what you give her as long as it's free 

She steals like a thief 

But she's always a woman to me 

Vaughn should have known better than to lead a kitten into a lion's den but truth be told he was happy for the company. He put a comforting hand on Will's shoulder as they walked down the barely lit corridor to her cell but it did little to calm his trembling.

Gone was the brightly lit, glass prison that she had been living in at the Joint Task Force building. Now she was in a makeshift prison; empty rooms with bars instead of doors, located in a bunker under the ground. She was the only prisoner being held but they had made other cells while making hers -- just in case.

Vaughn would have known when they reached her cell, simply by Will's sharp intake of breath. He wasted no time unlocking the door and pushing Will in ahead of him. He didn't want to have any time to admit to himself that he was scared as well. Once they were inside he relocked the door.

Irina sat on her bed, a tattered, gray wool blanket wrapped around her, rereading an old book. She glanced up at their entrance and gave Will a curious look. When her eyes came upon Vaughn though, her whole face darkened.

Vaughn saw her look change when she looked at him and he almost lost his nerve. He was surprised though. She looked a little more haggard and no longer as peaceful with herself since the last time he had seen her. She looked like a string pulled a little too tight. He decided to speak quickly before his courage left him completely. 

"Sark came to see me today. Now, I know that you don't want to talk to anyone but I was hoping that you might have an insight on why he would come to see me and tell me where to find Sydney."

The cell was quiet now, in great contrast to Vaughn's rushed speech. He could hear the facet drip slowly, and together with Irina's penetrating look Vaughn felt slightly foolish for bothering her. He didn't know what he was expecting, she had been silent since the day Jack had died, but he felt frustrated all the same.

Finally, after a moment, Irina put down her old book and her quiet voice broke the silence. "Why don't you start from the beginning."

__

She will promise you more 

Than the Garden of Eden 

Then she'll carelessly cut you 

And laugh while you're bleedin' 

Vaughn took a seat on the metal chair, the only piece of furniture other than the bed while Will retreated to the back and leaned up against the wall. Vaughn paused a moment to debate how far back she wanted him to go, but then he decided to start at the very beginning to refresh her mind.

"Right…. I'm sure that you know some of this already but I will start at the beginning." Vaughn noticed that she smiled a small smile to herself, but since he didn't understand the context he just shrugged it off and continued. The only way he could speak of the events from the last year was to pretend he was giving a report. 

"Ok. Last year we received intel indicating that Sloane was developing and/or had acquired nuclear weapons. Using intercepted communications we traced his whereabouts to one of the Cook Islands in the south pacific. A Special Forces team was put together to try and capture him and as you know, Sydney went with them. Kendall put me on backup, which included monitoring satellites from Langley. At first, everything seemed to be going according to plan. The team had found an old building that they thought could have been Sloane's hideaway. They were about to approach it and then Sydney radioed in..." 

Vaughn paused in his memorized script. Suddenly he was back in the control room at Langley. The feed from the satellite was glowing on several of the monitors. "The last thing she said was 'It smells like thunder….'"

He rubbed his forehead with his hand. It seemed that his headache was making a comeback and making it harder to pretend that these events hadn't ripped him right in two. "After that, we lost all radio and satellite contact. Later, I found out that at the same time that we lost contact with our team, Sloane called the President and made his first set of demands. The President basically told Sloane to go to hell and three hours after we lost contact -- Sloane detonated a 20 kiloton nuclear bomb in Charleston, South Carolina destroying the town and Charleston Air Force Base. Pretty much everything went into lock down at that point and by the time I was able to get another team down to Cook Islands to rescue our people it was five days later, and there was nothing left to rescue. They found a few bodies, but they found no trace of Sydney."

Vaughn left his head in his hands. It was easier to concentrate on his headache than it was Irina's face. "I tried…I did everything I could but we had no leads, it was like Sloane had disappeared off the face of the earth. Finally, three months later we found a clue. I traced a transmission from Sloane to a third party in Indonesia. At the same time Jack used the intel to trace another nuclear warhead en route to Washington DC. So we split up. I went to try and find Sydney and Jack went to try and stop the bomb. Jack had some other contacts though, and used them to try and track the bomb before it was dropped into location. He tracked it to a small receiving warehouse in Baltimore. I must have found something strange because he radioed me immediately while I was in the air and told me to abort the mission. We think that he managed to remove the nuclear reaction chamber from the bomb but he must have triggered an alarm or something because the rest of the explosives were triggered remotely. I flew immediately to Washington but there was nothing left of the warehouse. We never found the nuclear fuel." Vaughn's voice had grown extremely quiet. He raised his head to look around but strangely enough Irina was looking away. He'd never seen her shy away from an opportunity to torture anyone. He glanced behind him and Will nodded encouragingly.

"I've spent the last nine months or so trying to find some clue as to Sydney's or Sloane's whereabouts. I didn't even have any evidence that she was alive until Sloane's telecast last month. Today Sark forces me to drive to an abandoned factory to tell me that I have one week to rescue Sydney and he gives me her location."

The silence in the room was almost deafening. Irina turned back to Vaughn and looked at him intently. "So what do you want from me?"

Vaughn sat up straight. Finally coming to the purpose behind his visit lent him some courage to finish the task. "Sark was one of your employees once. I need to know if you know any reason why Sark would try to help her now."

Irina had remained relatively impassive throughout his recitation and her words now were spoken without emotion. "Because it's a trap, Agent Vaughn. You can't go."

__

But she'll bring out the best 

And the worst you can be 

Blame it all on yourself 

Cause she's always a woman to me 

"I can't just to leave her there!" Vaughn half-shouted, shocked at her suggestion. He had been so worried that she wouldn't talk to him and then when she did, he had been so sure that she would have the proper solution. He never considered that she would tell him not to go.

"Well if you are not going to listen to my advice then why did you come here?"

Vaughn's lips contorted in frustration. "Because I was hoping you would be able to help me find a way to save Sydney."

"Well, I don't think that it can be done." Irina said sadly but with firm voice.

Vaughn stood up, his face flushed with anger. "Fine. Never mind then."

Irina followed him with her eyes. "You are going to go save her?"

"Of course! Do you think I'm going to let you destroy this for me as well? Maybe you don't care about your daughter, but I do."

"You don't have a clue what I care about." Irina answered quietly but her anger was brimming just underneath the surface. "I love my daughter more than life itself. But you don't understand what you are dealing with here." If Vaughn had been calmer he might have seen the subtle change that came over her when he accused her of not loving her daughter. Will however, did notice her clenched fists and the tightening of her jaw and he wisely moved farther into the corner.

Vaughn let his rage out. "Maybe you're right. I don't understand everything that is going on here, but I do understand this. You killed my father. I am not going to let you kill Sydney as well."

Vaughn saw Irina's eyes flash with rage the moment before he found himself pinned against the far wall, his collar clenched and twisted in Irina's cold hands. For some strange reason he noticed the old wool blanket lying crumpled on the floor where it had fallen. At the old building there were video cameras and US Marshals ready to respond to any move that she made; here there were neither. She had spent most of last year in a semi-catatonic state, and the FBI had had bigger things to worry about. 

Her eyes were like coals searing through to his soul. "How dare you!" Irina practically shouted. Her face was only inches away from his and Vaughn tried not to flinch when he felt her breath on his cheek. Irina lowered her voice so that Will could barely hear. "You know nothing about me." She might have left it at that except she saw the determination in Vaughn's eyes and knew that if she did not speak now, she might as well never speak again. 

"I did not kill your father," she hissed quietly, "your father died to protect you and everyone else in this god forsaken world, and now you would turn his sacrifice into nothing! All the while you are damning me for not loving my daughter, when it is that very love that probably saved us to begin with!" She released Vaughn and threw him backwards. Since he was already up against the wall it was she that took a step back. She turned away from him.

Vaughn stared at her open mouthed, unable to process what she had said. Thankfully for him, Will had the sense to utter, "What?"


	5. Chapter 4b

****

Part 4b

__

She is frequently kind 

And she's suddenly cruel 

She can do as she pleases 

She's nobody's fool 

Irina was forced to turn back around. Her anger was gone but in its place had appeared a deep sadness. She looked at the man she just sucker-punched with her words and thought that maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut for another nine months. She approached him slowly, warily, unsure of his response or if he would even believe her. His eyes followed her as if waiting for the deathblow, but demanding it all the same.

"I am not abdicating my responsibility in his death. I gave him the damn manuscript." She dropped back down onto her bed, almost defeated. "I didn't know what was in it. He showed it to me later. He'd been able to decipher it based on a key they had found several months earlier. How was I supposed to know that it would have a picture of him in it? It was written 500 years ago!" Irina had turned away slightly and so she didn't see Vaughn's face pale. When she did look back at him however it was obvious that something was wrong. "What? What is it?"

Vaughn shook his head, unable to respond. Irina didn't understand. She had expected accusations, denials or damnation. She had not expected shock, at least not so quickly.

"Fine," she said a little annoyed at his silence, but she was used to playing these games. "As you know Rambaldi invented or prophesized the invention of many technological devices. From Sloane's current rise to power you know that this included weapons as well. I don't know what bizarre twist of fate linked your father to Rambaldi or how it was that of all the things I could have given him, that was the thing I gave him, but this manuscript talked about a weapon called The Flute." 

Irina paused, trying to remember details from almost thirty years ago. "It didn't describe what the weapon did in any great detail or what it looked like. It just had a picture of your father's face…" She hadn't thought that Vaughn's face could register any other emotion other than the shock on it, but at the mention of his father's face, he looked like someone had stabbed him. Though it pained her, she couldn't stop now. 

"He looked so young and peaceful. It was a beautiful picture. Around it was an inscription. If I remember correctly it said 'This man holds the secret to life and such also the secret of death. Hidden within him lies the code for both, because one cannot exist without the other. Though his blood has been shed for many, for nothing, a single drop of his blood can bring the greatest music to life."

"I said 'weapon' when I first mentioned the Flute but to Rambaldi it was the key to eternal life. It was what he had been searching for. Remember that flower we brought back from Kashmir? Well anything that can sustain life forever can also destroy it in the blink of an eye. At first we thought that if we just destroyed the manuscript then it would be impossible to activate the weapon and your father would be safe. Unfortunately, a few days later, the CIA sent William to retrieve a new Rambaldi device; an antique vase. He returned with it and after it had gone through analysis it became obvious to us that Rambaldi had put some redundancy in his instructions. The vase had an inscription on the inside of it describing the flower of youth, but it also spoke about the Flute."

"It also became obvious to me and I related this information to your father, that the person who was supposed to receive the manuscript was quite angry that he hadn't received it and he was using his own methods to track it down."

Irina stood up again and started to pace the room. Will was shocked to see her twisting her hands in agitation. "You have to understand the horrible consequences that this weapon could have. Rambaldi was looking for the secret to life. Your labs analyzed that flower we brought back from India. Whether you like it or not, you know that Rambaldi had discovered something. Well the secret to life is also the secret to death. After that, your father disappeared for a few days. I tried to contact him, I tried all the usual drops and signs that we had established. Nothing." Irina's voice cracked slightly but she continued. "Finally, three days after he disappeared, he called me and told me to come and meet him. I will never forget the agony in his voice. When I arrived at the old warehouse I found him dead. He had cut his own throat."

Irina turned back to face William's son, her face honest and tortured. "He left me specific instructions to burn everything. He had already burned the manuscript. I found a pile of ashes next to his body. So I did. I burned the warehouse to ground. I made it look like I had fulfilled the original mission that had brought me to your father in the first place."

Vaughn stared at Irina without moving for so long that she thought he'd turned to stone. Finally he found his voice and asked the only questions that he could think of. "Why were you meeting my father?"

Irina was so surprised at his possible acceptance of her story that she answered plainly, "Because I was trying to leave the KGB."

Vaughn stared at her a moment, absorbing the full meaning of her answer and then nodded. "And the manuscript?"

"He wanted proof of my intentions before he would help me. I just happened to have the sealed manuscript with me. I was supposed to courier it to a drop off point, later on that day."

Will, who had been watching the interplay from the safety of his corner and seeing Irina so disarmed gave him the courage to speak. "What does this have to do with Sark setting a trap by helping us to find Sydney?"

Irina's mask slid easily back into place and she turned her hard stare to Will. He was pleased with himself when he managed not to flinch. "It has everything to do with it. William died and had me destroy his body so that his DNA could not be recovered. He destroyed the manuscript so that weapon could never be built and he died so that the weapon could never be activated."

Irina turned back to Vaughn, bitterness heavy in her voice. "Unfortunately, I later found out that we had been discovered by a mole in the CIA." Vaughn turned his face away from her.

"Anyway, the problem now is, that the person who was looking for the manuscript almost thirty years ago is now in a position to assemble this weapon. If he has learned about the code…then all he needs to do is capture William's son." 

Irina's voice softened as she walked up to Vaughn and turned his face back to her. She looked over his face, her icy hand on his cheek. "You know it might not have been William in that manuscript. It might have been you."

Vaughn recoiled from her touch and got up, her words heavy on his mind. He tried desperately to form some order to his thoughts but there were still too many holes. He knew his questions to be irrelevant to the profoundness of the moment but he was helpless to stop himself. "How does Sark fit into all this? I thought he worked for you?"

Irina turned away from him, her posture and bearing bringing her back to the woman she had been one year ago. "Sark is his own person. Let's just leave it at that. We worked together because we were mutually helpful to each other and we saw eye to eye in certain things. Needless to say things may have changed in the last two years."

But Vaughn couldn't stop himself. He couldn't stop himself from turning around to deliver the one blow that he could to the woman that had shattered his life. "And you? What about you? Why did you decide to come back after thirty years, to the one organization that shunned you in the first place?"

Irina's cold eyes locked on to his but she refused to take the blow. She waited a moment to show him that she would not answer him. "You want to rescue Sydney, fine. Get me out of here and I will help you. Maybe if I do, I can prevent you from destroying the world."

Vaughn stared back at her, refusing to be baited. Their wills seemed to clash like steel and stone until finally, he closed his eyes in acceptance of their pact. 

__

But she can't be convicted 

She's earned her degree 

And the most she will do 

Is throw shadows at you 

But she's always a woman to me 


	6. Chapter 5

****

Part 5.

The song is The Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin   


Vaughn glanced around the small cell, lost in his thoughts. His glance fell upon Will who was standing in the corner, staring at him as if he had gone mad. Vaughn ignored Will's glance and turned his focus back to Irina. She hadn't moved or said a word, she'd merely allowed him to formulate his thoughts.

She stood there looking at him calmly. He responded by hardening his expression. "We will do this my way first," he said.

Irina nodded.

"Your way? You're actually going to try and let her out?" Will raised his voice in anger and disbelief. "Are you mad?"

Vaughn continued to ignore him and turned back to Irina to speak again. Will grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to turn back. "Stop ignoring me! I've lost everyone I've ever cared about too! My family died in Los Angeles you know. I've also been grieving for Jack and Sydney. The world has stopped for me too, but I'm not going to suspend reality for a moment because some mad woman tells me that my father was in some twisted, made-up prediction." Will paused for a moment, to search Vaughn's face in a desperate attempt to make him see reason, his hand still tight on his arm. "You can't really be willing to suspend rational thought to accept the aid of this woman. I think she was telling the truth in this case, she probably did start this whole crazy thing and she probably intends to end it as well. You can't really believe that all of this was part of some prophecy?"

Vaughn lowered his eyes. Will thought for a moment that he had succeed in stopping this madness but then Vaughn spoke. "Sydney was in a prophecy as well."

Will's arm dropped to his side. Irina and Will turned to stare at Vaughn, Will with a shocked expression on his face, Irina with a look of horror on hers.

Vaughn reluctantly filled them in on the contents of page 47. "But the prophecy said _'The woman here depicted will possess unseen marks. Signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works...bind them with fury; a burning anger. Unless prevented, at vulgar cost, this woman   
will render the greatest power unto utter desolation. This woman, without pretense, will have had her effect, never having seen the beauty of my sky, behind Mount Subasio. Perhaps a single glance would have quelled her fire.'_ Well, after we rescued Sydney, she climbed that mountain. That set her free of this prophecy."

Will stared at Vaughn shell-shocked but Irina turned away. In a parallel movement to what she had done moments before, Vaughn showed them both the changes that he had gone through. Without fear, he reached towards her, and using his hand on her cheek, turned her face back to him. His voice hard and brittle, "It might not have been Sydney in that prophecy, it might have been you."

__

Queen of Light took her bow, and then she turned to go,   
The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom, and walked the night alone.   


Vaughn allowed them a few moments to digest the complicated web that was being woven around them. "As I said, we will try this my way, first." He spoke to Irina again. "If it doesn't work, then you can improvise." He walked over to Will and moved aside his jacket so that Irina could see the gun in his holster.

Irina nodded again. Will looked at Vaughn, angry and confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Vaughn turned to him and forced his face to relax a little. "Well normally you don't go and see a prisoner armed. But it doesn't matter right now and in this case that might actually be able to help us."

"I'm not going to shoot anyone!" Will exclaimed, flustered at his error and still reeling in shock from Vaughn's previous statements.

"You won't have to." Irina said plainly, going up to him and unarming him with a single, smooth move. She tucked his pistol in the waistband of her pants, behind her back.

Vaughn watched them silently and then spoke again. "We are all just going to walk out of here. You are going to allow me to go first and Will you will go last. Just follow my lead." Vaughn waited a moment for Will to ask any dire questions, but it seemed that Will was still nursing the shoulder that Irina had just mistreated.   


__

Oh, dance in the dark of night, sing to the morning light.   
The dark Lord rides in force tonight, and time will tell us all.   


Vaughn walked up calmly to the security desk with Irina and Will closely behind him in order. His face was impassive, like he had been dealing with an uncooperative prisoner. Irina was of course a fine actress and had shifted back into the shell of the woman she had been for close to a year. She shuffled along like her feet and hands were chained together. Will managed to look appropriately nervous. It was appropriate because Irina made everyone nervous regardless of whether or not she spoke. Vaughn reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope with the JTF logo in the corner and removed a white piece of paper.

"As per Director Kendall's orders we are taking Ms Derevko up to Psych for an analysis. We will be returning with her in an hour." He waved the white paper in the guard's face but the guard waved him through; he had seen Kendall's signature.

"Do you want an armed escort, Agent Vaughn?" the guard asked him.

Vaughn looked at him, amused. "No, I don't think Ms. Derevko is going to be a problem."

The guard nodded in understanding and regarded the agent with a new measure of respect. Anyone that could handle the prisoner with that much confidence had to be respected. The guard waved them through to the elevator.

In the elevator Will turned to Vaughn. "What was on the piece of paper?"

Vaughn tried to suppress an ironic twist to his mouth, but he failed. "It was a letter from Kendall authorizing me to sign out an aircraft to rescue Sydney from the Cook Islands." Vaughn took it back out but this time he moved his thumb so that the date was visible. The letter was dated nine months ago. On closer inspection Will also noted that the creases in the folds and the dog eared edges made it look well read.

__

Side by side we wait the might of the darkest of them all.   


Vaughn pressed the button for the seventh floor. Psych was on the third. They stared in silence as the elevator rose from the depths of the underground headquarters. Vaughn replaced the folded letter to the inside pocket of his jacket. Next to it, he felt the small package that he always kept with the letter.

  
_I hear the horses' thunder down in the valley below,   
I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon, waiting for the eastern glow.   
_

  
Vaughn entered Op Prep by himself. Inside the room was a tech working on a mold casting. "Hi Tracy" said Vaughn casually, his shoulders slightly drooping.

The petite blonde saw him and waved him in with a small smile. "Hi Mike! How's it going?"

Vaughn shrugged noncommittally. "I was wondering if you could do me a small favor?"

Tracy noticed his somber mood and nodded. "Of course. What's up?"

Vaughn slumped down in the chair and put his head in his hands. "It's been driving me nuts, thinking about Sydney but I can't help myself. She was so many people, she had so many aliases, you know I can't even remember them all. I was awake all night, last night, trying to remember them."

Tracy smiled in sympathy. She had known Sydney as well and she had helped put together a dozen or so disguises for her.

Vaughn looked up at her, the pain in his eyes real. "I was wondering if you could get me the file of all her aliases. I know it's not going to make a difference with anything, but maybe I will at least be able to get some sleep tonight. I want to be able to remember all of her."

"Sure, Mike. No problem." Tracy agreed quickly, eager to help an old friend. "But some of the older files are down in storage, they will take me a little while to find."

"That's no problem Tracy, I'm really in no hurry. Is it ok if I just wait here, that way Kendall won't find me to give me some menial task?"

Tracy smiled in understanding. "Of course. It shouldn't take me more than twenty minutes or so. Relax here, put your feet up, try on a wig or something. Pretending I am someone else always makes me feel better." 

Vaughn gave her a friendly smile and watched her leave the room. He waited a few minutes after she left and then went back into the corridor. He opened the janitor's closet and rescued Irina and Will. Will looked about ready to have a nervous breakdown while Irina had a small smile on her face. He showed them into the make-up room and let her go to work.

"What lie did you have to tell to get Tracy out of here?" Will asked disapprovingly, trying to work the kinks out of his back.

Vaughn looked at Will and silently acknowledged his recent poor treatment of his friend. With pain mirrored in both their eyes, Vaughn replied. "What makes you think I had to lie?"

The apples of the valley hold, The seeds of happiness,   
The ground is rich from tender care, Repay, do not forget, no, no.   


Vaughn watched as Irina transformed herself from wanted terrorist to next door neighbor with quick and precise movements. She used a blond wig, but instead of going for a younger look she tried to add ten years to her face. Will stood in the doorway keeping an eye out for anyone.

"Hi Tracy!" Will called out in a friendly manner, while warning his companions.

Irina glanced at Vaughn through the mirror with a concerned look on her face and made a move to take out Will's gun. Vaughn stopped her with a quick gesture. Instead she turned and hid under the desk. Tracy came back in to see Vaughn where she had left him, his head still in his hands.

She smiled in sympathy at him. "Here you go Mike. Sorry it took me a few extra minutes but they had split my files up and of course they didn't use any logic in doing it."

Vaughn forced a small smile onto his face. "Thanks Tracy." He took the manila file folder that she offered him. He couldn't stop himself from opening it.

Unfortunately he wasn't prepared for the picture of the perky redhead that greeted him on the first page. He felt the air being knocked out of him as he stared at her face. Caught in a moment in time, she looked sophisticated yet innocent. She had a half smile on her face like she was amused at having her photo taken, which she probably was at the time. His hands shook slightly as he picked up the photo. He was surprised. It was actually much harder to see her untouched by the events that had unfolded than it was to see the footage of her sitting like an animal at Sloane's feet. He hardly noticed the silence that had fallen as Tracy and Will watched him.

Finally, Will spoke quietly to Tracy. "Do you want to go get a coffee? I think we should just leave him alone for a few minutes." When Tracy agreed, Will came up to Vaughn and put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen we're just going down to get some coffee. I'll catch up with you later, if we're still going to visit Jack today."

Vaughn looked up, the anguish visible in his eyes. "Sure Will. Why don't I meet you at your car…I just need a few minutes…"

Will nodded and turned to leave with the blonde.

Vaughn didn't hear Irina come up behind him until she spoke in a quiet voice. "We need to go." Vaughn quickly flipped through the file and found no other pictures of her. He tucked the one in his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket with the letter and the package.

Dance in the dark of night, sing to the morning light.   


  
Irina and Vaughn rode the elevator silently until it stopped a few floors up. One of Vaughn's coworkers entered the elevator, and gave him a quick greeting. "Are you going to the briefing room Vaughn?"

Vaughn shook his head. "Why would I be?"

"You haven't heard? Sloane is giving another telecast. Come on, we're running a few minutes late" his coworker said as the elevator door opened. Vaughn shot Irina a glance of panic but she smiled sweetly and motioned him forward. She followed him off the elevator and into a room full of CIA agents.

__

The apples turn to brown and black, The tyrant's face is red.   


So many people were pressed into the room that no one spared a glance for the older woman walking after Agent Vaughn. Instead, Sloane's face on the television screen commanded their attention.

"…glad that we could come to an agreement in our last discussion. I have sources that tell me that you have finally developed a particle accelerator that is able to accelerate molecules past the speed of light. Congratulations, that is an amazing discovery. I am interested in obtaining this accelerator. To show my good intentions toward this country I will offer fifty million dollars to the University in Florida in compensation. The accelerator will be delivered by tomorrow to these coordinates…  


Vaughn had heard enough. The air in the room was suffocating him and all the people pressed in close were making him claustrophobic. He had no clue whether or not they would follow his demands, but that's what they were - demands. The fifty million dollars might as well be fifty cents for how much the American currency was worth these days. He was still shocked that the government had agreed to his previous demands to stand down all the nuclear warheads. He shook his head. This was one problem he didn't have to deal with. He grabbed Irina's arm and attempted to make their way out of the room before someone really saw them. Unfortunately, such a large group had gathered that by the time they made it to the edge of the crowd, it was already starting to disperse.

__

Oh the war is common cry, Pick up you swords and fly.   
The sky is filled with good and bad that mortals never know.   


"Agent Vaughn!" Vaughn tried to ignore the call as he picked their way through the crowd. "Agent Vaughn!" He felt a hand pulling on his arm, turning him around. He came face to face with Kendall.

"Sorry Sir, I guess I didn't hear you." Vaughn said quickly, anxious to move on. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Irina trying to make herself less conspicuous.

"Well, I need you back in the briefing room. We're assembling a team to go over some new intel that we've just received."

Vaughn looked at him, trying desperately to figure out a way out of this that didn't include connecting his fist to Kendall's nose. To his shock Irina spoke.

"Why you must be Michael's boss!" she said in a slightly accented voice. Kendall turned around to face her as she threaded her arm around Vaughn's. 

He raised his eyebrow. "Yes, and you are…..?"

"Why I'm Mrs. Vaughn. Michael's mother."

Vaughn heard the words and thankfully the rational side of his brain told him not to flinch. Irina smiled sweetly at him before continuing. "Since everything that's happened I just want to be with whatever family I have left. Michael's helping me move up here."

Kendall stared at her face in confusion. To keep him from thinking overmuch on it Vaughn was forced into the charade.  


"Sir, I just have to drop my mother off at my car and then I will be back for the meeting."

Kendall turned his attention back to his agent. "Fine. Be quick though. We need this intel."

Vaughn walked back to the elevator with Irina on his arm. So Kendall wanted intel did he? Vaughn shook his head. He had enough intel to shock Kendall's hair back onto his head. He looked around at the makeshift office one last time, the irony of his life almost overwhelming him. It was scary how much the office looked like the old SD-6 offices with all the desks laid out in an open room and no windows. All the agents scurrying around, believing that they were doing something useful for their country, when the very key to it all was what was forcing him from here. He shrugged to himself and turned his back on his life.

__

Oh, well, the night is long the beads of time pass slow,   
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.   


  
Irina and Vaughn waited for Will by his car. The garage was still deserted.

"I haven't seen a guard here yet. Is that normal?" she asked.

Vaughn shook his head. "You have your ex-employee to thank for that. He removed the guard from the front and the shift change is until another hour. Then you can rest assured that all hell will break lose. Until then, this is the calm before the storm."

The stood together in silence, leaning against the car.

Finally Vaughn spoke. "Did Jack know?"

Irina paused a moment before answering. "No."

"Why?" Vaughn asked tentatively, not eager to ask a personal question.

"I never told him because I wasn't able to speak freely in the old cell and I didn't want the CIA to know." She paused another moment before continuing. "But I also didn't tell him because I didn't want him to have to deal with it. I didn't think he would be able to deal with it. Of the two of us, I'm the stronger one."

Vaughn looked at her curiously.

Irina saw the look and attempted to explain. It seemed to him that ever since she had told him about his father a lot of the barriers between the two of them had come down. It was almost like she found it a relief to talk to him. "Jack could have been brutal when the situation called for it, but he could never have been vulgar. He could have been cruel, but he couldn't have been malicious. He had a vulnerability about him that, though nobody else may have understood, I did. There was no need to make him bear more than he was already."

"I'm sorry." Vaughn said, his voice full of sorrow for truths that could now never be spoken.

Irina nodded. "Don't be too sorry. Jack was his own man, he made his own decisions." Irina's voice got quiet almost like she was talking to herself. "Besides, he knows the truth now."

Vaughn looked a little surprised. "I never thought you were a religious person."

"I'm not. Not in the typical sense. Organized religion was illegal in Russia when I was growing up but there were many underground churches. I remember how my mother would take me with her when she went to her secret Masses… I picked up the basics but I never found any peace in it. The priests tried to teach me to be repentant but it wasn't me" she said with a short laugh at herself. "I am accountable to myself alone. I cannot ask someone else for redemption for the mistakes that I have made. I was given life and the ability to think and so I am responsible for my own actions."

"Do you think you will be with Jack again, one day?"

Irina looked carefully at the young man questioning her. "I believe so."

__

Sing as you raise your bow, shoot straighter than before.   
No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold.   


  
"And what about you Mr. Vaughn. Do you believe in life after death?"

Vaughn thought about the events of the last year and hardened his voice. "No."

__

Oh dance in the dark of night, Sing to the morning light.   
The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back. Bring it back.   


As Will approached them he felt the heavy silence hanging in the air. No one said anything as he unlocked the doors and they entered the car; Irina sat up front, while Vaughn sat in the back.

Will looked around one last time, knowing that regardless of what happened, none of them would ever be returning here. The garage was gray and cold and empty.

__

At last the sun is shining, The clouds of blue roll by,   
With flames from the dragon of darkness, the sunlight blinds his eyes.   



	7. Chapter 6

****

Part 6.

__

The song is Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

__

So, so you think you can tell   
Heaven from Hell

Vaughn opened the sliding door and let himself out onto the balcony. The air was warm and the scent of flowers almost overpowering. He glanced at the setting sun and saw it reflected off of the ocean in the distance. This could have been paradise, he thought to himself. It could have been but because of matters that had nothing to do with the scenery and tranquility of the mountain range it wasn't. He took a seat on an elegantly wrought iron chair, lost in his thoughts. He didn't even hear the maid approach.

"Signore Vaughn, lei amerebbe qualcosa per bere?"

Vaughn jumped at the sound, his mind racing, trying to translate the Italian. "No, grazie."

The maid turned away unhappily and left him to his thoughts. They were in Sardinia, Italy at the villa of Signore Marco Torrinni. Marco was an old friend of Vaughn's father and even after thirty years, he had been more than happy to help his old friend's son out. He had been able to provide lots of help including arranging transportation for them to 30,000 feet above the old military compound in Valencia, Spain tonight. 

He fiddled restlessly with a leaf that had blown on his lap and his thoughts wandered back to their escape out of Washington. To his shock, Irina had been able to provide a contact that was able to make them papers and passports within half an hour, it had only taken a trip to a rather shady part of town. He hadn't been paying attention to where Will was driving, only that he had stopped at a phone booth so that Irina could make a phone call. After that he had heard brief instructions being given and suddenly he looked around at the scenery and found that they were in the north end of Washington DC.

Will stopped in front of a run down German laundromat. Vaughn remembered looking at his companions skeptically but Will had merely glared back at him while Irina ignored him. Overall, it had been a strange encounter. The owner, Mr. Bartul had practically fallen off his stool with shock at seeing Irina walk in. But for a man over seventy he managed to move with speed and agility and provided them with the means to leave the country. Within the hour they were at Dulles International Airport on the first international flight leaving directly out of the country. After a few connections they arrived in Italy. 

It had been a harrowing trip. They were constantly looking over their shoulders, Irina was always giving them cryptic instructions and Will had just about eaten a complete bottle of antacids. Obviously Vaughn's lies had bought them some time, but they still arrived at Marco's doorstep with frayed nerves. After their arrival they managed to hammered out the details of the rescue operation and then gone their separate ways for two days, gathering all of the supplies. They would leave tonight at dusk. Until then he had a few more hours to himself.

He glanced around the scenery and thought sadly that if circumstances had been different, Sydney would have really enjoyed visiting here.

  
_Blue skies from pain.   
Can you tell a green field   
From a cold steel rail? _

The sand blew up into Will's face from the dirt road he was riding on. He pulled his moped off to the side and stopped the engine. The countryside resettled into silence as the dust settled. He hopped off the bike, removed his helmet and placed it on the handlebars. A mixture of wild olive trees and grass lined the side of the road and he made his way to the shade that the trees offered. As he settled himself in the grass he allowed himself to relax for the first time in three days. The area was deserted and except for the chirping of the birds there was nothing to interrupt him.

The past few days had pretty much ripped him apart from his comfortable existence and now part of their mission depended on him being comfortable with things that he had never experienced before. He'd never even jumped out of a plane before and tonight he was supposed to do it at 30,000 feet! He'd never even fired a gun at another human being before and yet tonight he would be carrying an automatic rifle. He felt more than slightly out of his element. He knew that he could have spoken up before this and that though Michael and Irina would probably have thought him a coward, they would have walked him through it a bit more. Instead he'd put on his brave face and they'd accepted it at face value.

Secretly, he was petrified about tonight. There were so many things that could go wrong – other than the free fall and his non-experience with automatic weapons. They had been able to find an old set of blueprints for the prison that Sydney was supposedly being kept in and used it to make their plans. But what if the blueprints were wrong? For that matter what if Sydney wasn't there? What if it was a trap so that Sark and Sloane could capture Vaughn? They were only going on Sark's word and Will had many reasons to despise and distrust Sark. 

During his time as a reporter and later in his work with the CIA, Will had seen many horrible, horrible people. But of all the people that he had been repulsed by, he had never known this burning hatred for anyone except for Sark. Aside from the torture and kidnapping that he had suffered at Sark's hands, Sark had been responsible for Francie's death. It had taken some time to unravel the horrible, complicated web that he had spun, but they had, only to discover that the Francie that he had grown to love was dead. She had been shot in the head and replaced by an imposter. Will felt his fist clench as he thought of the past. They'd never even had a chance.

Sark had helped Sloane kill his family and several million innocent people by detonating the bomb in LA. He remembered vividly the destruction and chaos in the aftermath of that third bomb. He remembered trying desperately to find his family but it turned out that they had gone shopping for the day. He figured that they were probably within a ten mile radius from ground zero. They'd never had a chance either.

Now Sark was 'helping' them to find Sydney whom he'd probably helped kidnap in the first place. He had killed Francie and his family and then he had taken Sydney away from him too. Will felt his nails cutting into his palm. Sark had destroyed every single thing that he cared about. Because of Sark, his world was empty and meaningless. He didn't know what he could do against him, but he knew that if he ever got the chance he would strangle the life out of him with his bare hands. Sark had left him with nothing to lose.

Will concentrated on his anger and hatred. They were so severe that they left no room for fear. But he also knew that he was not as strong as Vaughn. He had seen Mike change, harden over the course of the last year, absorbing all the horror and tragedy. Will knew that if he focused his mind on his hatred of Sark though, he would be consumed by it. He knew that he wouldn't harden like Mike, or become amused like Irina. He knew that it would eventually destroy him.

And secretly that's what he feared the most. What if he wasn't strong enough to do what had to be done. What if he failed Sydney or Michael? They were the only two people left that he cared about. He knew that if he failed Irina, that she would merely flay him alive and move on, but if he failed his friends – he would never be able to live with himself.

Maybe his eventual destruction was simply the price he would have to pay for saving the last person he cared about. 

He watched a bird fly between two trees and for a moment he envied the simplicity of its movements. As it glided onto a branch, he wondered if life could really be that simple. Was it just a matter of putting on his brave face and jumping forward? But secretly he wondered. Wasn't a bird ever scared to fly? Wasn't it ever scared that the price it paid for its freedom was too high? Did it ever worry that it might not find a place to land?

__

A smile from a veil?   
Do you think you can tell?   


Irina walked through the garden behind the villa. The exotic flowers filling the air with a calming sweetness. She inhaled deeply, swallowing in the peace like it was air and she was drowning. She thought that she should be used to it by now - the constant turmoil and chaos that seemed to be her life. But the truth of the matter was that she was tired. Tired of the lies, tired of being impenetrable, tired of thinking eighteen steps ahead. She was just tired. 

She closed her eyes and inhaled again, trying to cleanse away her thoughts with her breath. But like a tide when it receded, she exhaled and her thoughts were left exposed like wet sand on the beach. Of all the thoughts swimming in her head, one in particular stood out in her mind. Maybe it was because it was what had started them on this route thirty years ago or maybe it was because she enjoyed talking to him, she didn't know. But she knew that she had lied to Vaughn again. She had told him the truth to redeem herself, but then she had lied to him.

She shook her head trying to banish the blood and death from her thoughts. She didn't want anything to taint her brief moment of peace. It was useless, though. The images came flooding through her mind regardless of the beauty around her. 

Why did one more lie bother her? Did it really matter that his father was not dead when she got to the warehouse, like she had told him he was? He still took his own life, but did it matter that he had done it in front of her? She had watched his life-blood drain out of him and she had not stopped him. Did it matter that she had watched his body shudder in death and she had not called for help? She knew that there could have been no help. The blood had pooled around her feet; it had permeated her shoes and stained her clothes. She had worn William's blood like a hair shirt. She had understood the horror hinted at in the manuscript. She understood the sacrifice that he was making, but she also understood that she had brought that sacrifice upon him. Was it then really fair then to burden his son with these images?

"You promise me…" he had told her threateningly. William was a large man and she had been only a young woman then. He could have snapped her in two if he had chosen to.

"What?" she had asked quietly…desperately, in a futile attempt to ease his misery.

"You promise me that you will stop this madness from ever happening. Even if I destroy myself, there's nothing to say that someone else won't be able to bring it forth."

She remembered looking at him with confusion and a fear that she knew that he was talking about. "Agent Vaughn, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you listen to me well," he grabbed her shirt collar and brought his angry face within a few inches of hers. "I'm going to end this here, right now, but you are going to make sure that no one can recover my body. Then you are going to find out who wanted that manuscript and you are going to stop them from ever bring forth this atrocity. Do you hear me?"

Irina nodded, frightened.

"Swear to me that you will!"

"I swear," she whispered her face drawn tight in fear and anguish. He let her go, not gently, and stepped back. Before she could think twice, or before he could lose his nerve, he plunged a small knife into his throat and drew it across. 

Did his son need to know how his blood gurgled as it escaped through his wind pipe? She shook her head. No he didn't and she was strong enough to endure the secret. She probably shouldn't have told him as much as she did, but she had no time for regrets. She had to stop herself from liking him too much. He was still young and innocent and could therefore afford to be virtuous, but she didn't think she could bear to see his eventual dissolution. Because she knew he would not be so innocent after this was all over. None of them would be.

__

And did they get you to trade   
Your heroes for ghosts?   


Sydney looked at the cement walls that made her cage. The dirt was everywhere even on the walls. She went to her favorite corner and touched the walls with her fingertips. They felt rough, but they felt. They caused her to feel. She followed the wall down to where it met the floor. More cement. The floor was also rough. Her fingers traced an imaginary pattern in the uneven concrete. 

She felt the emptiness inside her and she let it consume her. She remembered feeling loved once upon a time, but unlike the fairytales she had been dreaming about this one was true. She remembered someone caressing her cheek. She remembered someone kissing her hair. She remembered feeling so cherished that she thought she was a princess.

She clung to these feelings without seeking their source. Their source was gone but the feeling remained like echoes in the wind. She remembered someone kissing her lips with such gentleness that she thought she that had been kissed by an angel. In a way, she knew that she had been. Once upon a time ago.

She leaned her head against to cold cement. She could feel the pain in her head starting up again as it always did when she ventured too far back in the past. She let silent tears fall down her face as the only tribute she could pay to that which did not exist anymore. Because nothing existed anymore and she was empty.

__

Hot ashes for trees?   
Hot air for a cool breeze?   
Cold comfort for change?   


Will parked the moped in one of the three garages and looked at his watch. It was time to start getting ready. Back in his room he was laying out his clothing for tonight on the bed when Vaughn knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Vaughn let himself in. "I just came in to make sure that everything is ok and to make sure that you were back."

Will nodded.

"Is everything ok?"

"Sure," replied Will with a touch of sarcasm and anger in his voice. Vaughn recognized his friend's fears and rested a comforting hand on Will's shoulder. Will shrugged it off and continued to sort through his personal gear.

"What are these stupid things for?" asked Will grabbing the string of beads that were hanging off of his utility vest.

"They're Ranger Beads," replied Vaughn patiently. He recognized that this was Will's attempt to make familiar to himself these things which he had never been involved with before. 

Will looked at him surprised, his anger forgotten for a moment. "You mean they actually have a function?"

Vaughn smiled. "Yeah. They're kind of like an abacus. You can use them to count men, equipment or the number of paces you've taken while surveying the enemy or while out on a patrol." Vaughn demonstrated by moving all the beads to the bottom of the cord. He then moved one up at a time. The cord was thick enough that once the beads were moved up, it held them there. 

"And I thought they were just for decoration." Will smiled at himself ruefully.

Vaughn smiled back in support. "Everything will be fine."

Will's face slowly hardened again. "How do you know?" he asked, trying to keep the panic from edging into his voice.

Vaughn thought about it for a moment and then answered it the only way he could. "Because if it's not, then it won't matter anyway."

Will looked away. 

"It's all it can do." Vaughn added quietly.

Will watched as Vaughn left him alone in his room. He looked over his once alien equipment and took in a deep breath. Vaughn was right. Regardless of what happened, they would do what they had to tonight. And after it was all done, then they would deal with the consequences, whatever they might be. 

He looked back to his gear and decided that perhaps he had one more reason to hate Sark. Sark had taken away everything he loved and now he was asking them all to sacrifice the only thing they had left. Themselves.

Will's mouth twisted in hatred. A final acceptance for the things about to come washed over him. Somehow after Sydney was safe, he would find a way to destroy Sark and make him pay.

With quick and precise movements to cover the last fears that he had, he started to dress. Tonight he would have to leave his fears behind because he could not afford the extra weight. Tonight he was determined to fly.

__

And did you exchange   
A walk on part in the war   
For a lead role in a cage?   


Back in his room alone, Vaughn was once again left to his thoughts. He was scared about tonight as well, but not for the same reasons that Will was. He understood what had to be done and was well aware of the dangers that went along with it. He understood and accepted them. If they failed tonight, then nothing would matter anymore. However, what did frighten him was if they were successful.

He sat on his bed and hung his head in his hands. What would it be like looking into Sydney's eyes after a having failed her for almost a year? Would she hate him? Would she damn him for the torture she'd had to endure? Or would he hate and damn himself?

Would she blame him for the death of her father? Vaughn almost cried at the irony of it all.

He rubbed his forehead. Even if she didn't blame him and he managed not to hate himself too much, what kind of life was he rescuing her to? If she still loved him and wanted to be with him, where would they go? He could never go back to the CIA, he had just helped a fugitive escape federal custody. Wherever they went, they would forever be looking over their shoulder. She had always shunned the idea of going into the Witness Protection Plan whenever the topic came up. 

Would she now accept a life on the run to be with him?

Vaughn sat on his bed and held his head in his hands. This was all he could do and he would do his part. After that, when she was free, she could choose her own path.

  
_How I wish, how I wish you were here.   
We're just two lost souls   
Swimming in a fish bowl,   
Year after year   
_

Who was he kidding, he thought to himself. It would destroy him if she didn't forgive him, but how could they still have a future together. He found himself praying to a God that he claimed he didn't believe in anymore that somehow, they would find a way.

Vaughn was surprised to see that he gripped the small package that he always carried close to his heart. He knew he shouldn't open it. He knew it but he was helpless to stop himself. Inside, sitting on top of a piece of blue velvet sat a small gold ring. In the center of the ring was a heart-shaped sapphire with two small diamonds, one on either side.

She was his soul mate. In his mind he already called her his wife. In reality, he had never got the chance to ask her.

He remembered the first two months that she was missing. He had felt like someone had placed a void inside him making him incapable of feeling anything. He had felt nothing except this incessant drive to spend every waking hour at his desk or tracking down leads, anything to get some information on her whereabouts. Then he remembered the day they had traced the transmission and thought that he had located Sydney. The intel had come as a godsend and he had shattered. He had faced so many disappointments, so many dead ends that he had become numb. He'd felt like he was hitting his head against a brick wall that had him on one side and Sydney on the other. And no matter how hard he hit the wall it made no difference yet it was all he could do. The day analysis had decoded that conversation it was like a brick that had finally come loose. He had slumped on his desk and cried. Cried with relief, cried because for the first time in two months he'd felt something and he cried because what he felt was pure fear. Fear that he hadn't found the information in time, fear for the horrors she had suffered, fear for the pain that he had caused her by not finding her sooner and fear that he loved her so much that he would shatter if he didn't find her. That night, when he returned to his apartment, he had opened his sock drawer and pulled out a small wooden box. It was worn with age but well taken care of. He slid open the box and lifted from it the small gold ring. 

It was slightly scratched from wear but the heart-shaped sapphire in the center still sparkled. It had two small diamonds on either side and he remembered his grandmother when she had given it to him, a few years before her death. "Michael," she had said, "I want you to have this ring that your grandfather gave me when he asked me to marry him." She had handed him the ring and he remembered looking at it like he looked at it that day in his apartment. "It's been in your grandfathers family for at least three generations, not counting you. I know it's not a typical engagement ring, Michael but you won't love a typical woman so it will suit her completely. The two diamonds will represent the pasts and the futures that the two of you will have, but you can't let them determine your love, they merely help your love to sparkle all the more, like the light the diamonds give t to the sapphire. When you find her Michael, love her. Love her so much that your soul hurts, then give her this ring."

That day he knew that he could give this ring to no other person. He took it to the jeweler to have it resized and polished and had carried it in his jacked, close to his heart, ever since.

Vaughn pulled out the black cargo pants and utility jacket that he would be wearing tonight. He looked at his watch. It was time to get dressed. Taking off his shirt triggered his memory back to nine months ago and the last time he had been preparing for a mission.

Two days after he had traced the transmission, him and Jack had been making the final preparations for their ops. In the change room, without thinking, Michael had taken the box out of his inside jacket pocket and placed it on the counter so that he could transfer it to his operational clothing. He had bent over to tie his boots and when he stood back up he noticed that Jack was staring at the box. It was obviously a jeweler's ring box and he could not pretend otherwise. Jack stared at the box; his mouth set in a thin line for a moment before turning his unyielding eyes towards him.

"Jack—"

But Jack raised his hand to stop him. He expression softened marginally but only in the way stone can soften. Jack had seen Vaughn's torment over the last few months. He had seen the pain that Vaughn had refused to feel, carved in his face.

"You love her." He stated.

The fear and anguish that he had been hiding for months came out. There was no room for doubts in his words. "I love her so much that my soul hurts."

Jack nodded in understanding, but not looking back at him. He was lost in his own world. After a moment he continued to pack his equipment and then he looked back at Vaughn and saw him standing still looking at him. It was obvious that Jack hadn't meant to say anything further but he decided to give him the only kind of approval he could. "You should give that to her the very next time you see her."

Vaughn nodded solemnly, pocketing the package in the chest pocket of his black utility jacket.

Vaughn shook his head to banish the past. There would be no next time if they were unsuccessful tonight. He had to dismiss his doubts. He knew what had to be done. Though he could feel the web of fate sticking to him like an old spider web, he knew what he had to do. It was all he could do, but he would do it.

__

Running over the same old ground.   
What have we found?   
The same old fears.   
Wish you were here.   


Irina buttoned her utility jacket and checked her vest one last time. She decided to move the ammunition for her pistol from her waist pocket to the chest pocket. She checked the safety on her pistol before securing it in her side holster. She looked around the room to makes sure she wasn't forgetting anything, but she was ready to go. 

She was slipping her glove over her left hand when she saw her wedding band sitting on her finger. Mr. Bartul had given it back to her. She had given the ring and other items of value to a friend of hers many years ago. The ring had been difficult to get back, the KGB had confiscated it when she returned from the United States, but she had. She had learned and then so had her KGB superiors learned that she could accomplish anything if she wanted to. Her friend had made sure that when she turned herself in to the CIA, that wherever she was located, there would be someone there who could help her if she got out and could give her back her treasures. For the first time in thirty years, she had put her wedding ring back on.

Jack had told her about the package that Vaughn carried. He had come to see her before he left on his last mission. She had seen such a strange look on his face, that it had taken her a moment to recognize it, he was at peace. There was no edge to him when he looked at her for the last time.

"Agent Vaughn tracked down Sloane. I'm going to go stop a bomb and he's going to rescue Sydney."

She had moved closer to him and put her hand up to the glass. "Be careful."

He shrugged away her concern. "He's going to marry her."

She smiled. "Good."

She remembered looking at him and suddenly understanding his peace. He was going to go do his job, but Sydney would be taken care of, better than either of them had ever managed to.

He looked at her calmly and tentatively raised his hand to hers across the glass. He didn't say a word and she was glad. Words were definitive and demanded that her past sins not be forgotten but a glance was intangible. His glance acknowledged the hurt that she caused him but it also acknowledged why he hurt. He had been hurt because he loved her, and therefore he knew that she still had the power to hurt him. They stood there for a few moments, looking at each other, trying to express thirty years of emotions with their eyes. Finally he stepped away from her prison.

"I will see you when this is over," he said and she waved softly at him as he left. 

When Vaughn had come to see her a few days later to tell her that Jack was dead she knew that finally, the Pied Piper had come to collect on her. She only prayed that she could withhold the rest of her payments for a little while longer. She had to, or everything would be for not. 

She felt a trickle of self doubt edging into her mind so she pulled the glove over her hand with a quick movement. She had chosen her path thirty years ago and now she would have to survive with the consequences. She was long past doubting herself. She had to be. There was no room in any of her clothes to carry regrets in. All her pockets were full of ammunition. 

With one last look around she turned off the light and stepped out of her room.


	8. Chapter 7

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I really appreciate it. Hold on to your hats – hope you enjoy!

****

Part 7.

__

This song is Blackbird by the Beatles (Covered by Sarah McLachlan)

__

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Will sat in the dark cabin and adjusted his oxygen mask slightly. The plane bumped along on its take off roll, aggravating his nervousness. 

Vaughn looked at him with a concerned look on his face. "Don't break the seal on your oxygen mask or the hour of pre-breathing you just done will be useless," he said through the radio within his own gas mask.

Will nodded and stopped fiddling with his mask. Irina had instilled the fear of God in him, or at least the fear of the Bends when she briefed him on the procedures for the jump. Will's overactive imagination could just picture all the tiny molecules of nitrogen swimming around the air, just waiting for the opportunity to jump into his body, expand and cause him excruciating pain. 

Will looked over to Irina as the plane leveled off from its ascent. She was absorbed in the drift calculations she was trying to figure out by the light of a red flashlight. She was their navigator during the jump; she had a portable GPS strapped to her left arm, right next to her altimeter. She had the weather report out along side a topographical map. Her job was to make sure that they landed in the small field just outside the military compound and not in the forest that lay on the other side of the compound. Jumping from 30,000 feet from an aircraft travelling over 100 mph Will could just imagine how difficult in would be to navigate them, in the dark, to a one square mile clearing. He had no desire to interrupt her in her important calculations so he sat on his hands to keep from fidgeting.

After a few painstaking moments, Will looked over to Vaughn and saw him adjusting the straps on his goggles. When Vaughn caught his gaze he gave him a small smile. Will was a little surprised. Since they had boarded the plane he had seen a subtle change come over his friend. His brief smiles still didn't reach his eyes but Will had the impression that maybe one day they could once again. Vaughn's job during the jump was to make sure that he didn't kill himself or anyone else. Which brought him to his own job during the jump - not to die. He planned on working really hard at his job. He squished the laughter that was threatening to bubble up at his thoughts. He wasn't sure if it was panic, hysteria or stress that had suddenly turned him into a comedian in his mind. If only there was something he could be doing to keep his mind occupied and interfere with the panic building up inside him.

Though he was nervous, bored and scared to death, Will wondered where the time had gone when he saw Coz unhook his seat belt. Coz or Cosimo Batistta was a retired jumpmaster from the Italian military and he was acting as their jumpmaster today. He was a large man with bigger biceps that Will's thighs. Secretly Coz scared Will only slightly less than Irina did and only slightly more than making this jump. Will shook his head. He'd spent the better part of the trip so far prioritizing his fears just to keep his mind off of them. He tried not to laugh at the irony. So far upsetting Irina seemed to be at the top, followed closely by upsetting Coz. Jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft at 30,000 feet, and being impaled by a tree branch while landing were a far third and forth.

"Dieci minuti." Coz barked over the radios.

Vaughn nodded to him. "That's our ten minute warning Will. Do you remember the prejump checks?"

Even without Vaughn's translation Will had figured out that his doom was imminent. He saw Irina look over her calculations one last time before putting them, her weather report and the small map away. Will concentrated on performing his checks. He checked his straps; twice just in case, and then secured his goggles. Vaughn and Irina took turns checking each other before checking him.

Coz secured himself to the safety line, opened the bay door and signaled them to approach. Will watched Vaughn as he activated his bailout oxygen and unhooked himself from the chest-mount receptacle. Will followed suit but was scared silly when he felt the pressure in his mask increase. He forced himself to remember what Vaughn had told him before takeoff. The mask had to use positive pressure to force oxygen into his lungs because of the reduced pressure found at this altitude. He quickly decided that having his lungs explode beat out his fear of the tree branch.

Irina approached the door first and activated the small red light on her helmet so that they could see her during the free-fall. She waited for Will and Vaughn to approach. They had to jump at the same time otherwise at the airspeed they were travelling at; they would be scattered too far apart.

Will stood up in the half-bent position that his rigging allowed and shuffled over to the bay door. As he approached it, he saw the darkness underneath him and tried to push the bile back down his throat. The last thing he wanted to do now was vomit in his mask.

"Ready?" Vaughn asked him through the radio.

Will nodded and was grateful that the mask covered most of his face.

Irina looked at her GPS and altimeter, nodded and held up one finger. "Radio silence upon exit." After a moment she gave them a brief nod and leaped forward.

"Go!" ordered Vaughn. Will had no choice but to leap forward as well.

__

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Vaughn maneuvered closer to Will and spread out in the flat-arched position. He watched Will try to maintain the position but his nervousness caused him to keep changing his speed. Vaughn gave him the thumbs up sign, which Will unenthusiastically returned. He grabbed a hold of Will's arm to stabilize him a little. He could see Irina slightly below them and he checked his altimeter. They still hand another minute and a half of freefall and another minute before they tried to navigate to their planned infiltration point.

For a moment Vaughn let himself enjoy the exhilaration of the freefall. He didn't know if it was the adrenaline, the fact that he was travelling approximately 120 mph straight down or the fact that Will was clutching his hand so hard that he was worried he might lose circulation in it but for the first time in almost a year he felt like he had no worries. Well, really he was worried about the landing, the op, finding Sydney, getting out alive.... But compared to the constant pressure of helplessness that he had felt all year, right now he felt like laughing. At least now he was doing something. And he could almost believe that if he didn't hit the ground at 120 mph, everything would be all right. Maybe there was hope for the future yet.

Irina glanced up at the men above her and she saw Vaughn flying with one hand on Will's arm. Silhouetted behind them were a million stars shinning brilliantly against the black sky. She looked down again. At this altitude her night vision goggles were useless and the area that they were flying over was relatively rural, so there were hardly any lights. She was surrounded by darkness. She allowed herself to relax for a moment and enjoy the thrill of the freefall. She had always enjoyed the sense of freedom she felt at being suspended between the heavens above and the earth below her. She smiled for a moment. Then she remembered that she was falling towards the earth and not towards the stars. Not yet, she thought bitterly. She forced her attention back to her altimeter and decided that it was time to move into position.

Vaughn saw Irina move out from under them and he checked his altimeter. It had almost gone around twice and it was time to pull the chute. He motioned to Will to pull his and he barely had time to let go when suddenly Will was jerked upward. Vaughn allowed himself to fall a few more seconds to increase the space between him and Will before he pulled his own.

Vaughn saw Irina land safely and managed to land within a few hundred feet of her. Will however, had had some trouble steering but Vaughn saw him land and manage to avoid the trees close to the edge of the field. It took twenty minutes but they regrouped. They unpacked their weapons and found a nook to hide their parachutes and rigging in.

Irina turned to Will and pulled out a copy of the floor plan from her pocket. "Ok, we are here." She turned the map so that it was oriented correctly for him. "You are going to proceed to this location and try and find us some transportation out of here. Any questions?"

Will shook his head and turned to see if Vaughn wanted to see the map but he didn't. Vaughn had figured out where they were and had memorized the blueprints two days ago. Will nodded to himself and unslung his rifle from his shoulder. 

"Don't rely too much on your night vision goggles. They restrict your field of view and you will be temporarily blinded if someone increases the amount of light suddenly." Vaughn said.

Will nodded. He checked his watch. They had four hours until daylight and they still had to make in into the compound. His legs still felt weak from the jump but he felt higher on the adrenaline coursing though his veins than on any of the drugs Jack had injected in him, so very long ago. He just hoped that he could hold his rifle without shaking too much. With one last look at his companions he turned and started towards the east-end of the compound.

Finally, Irina turned to Vaughn. "Ready?"

Vaughn looked at her in the dim light. This was it. He pushed his excitement and nerves into a corner of his mind and focused on her eyes. Eyes so very much like Sydney and yet so very different. He gave her a curt nod and they moved out.

__

Blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night.

Sark watched a dark figure hop the small fence on the northeast side of the compound. He watched him move somewhat awkwardly, trying to hide in the shadows but silhouetting himself a moment later against the lights around the perimeter. Sark focused his binoculars but he couldn't make out the man's face. He was a little surprised that the CIA would send someone so inexperienced with their team.

He removed the binoculars from his face and scanned the horizon with his eyes. Something wasn't right. If it was a CIA team, protocol would state at least twenty to thirty men and air support, but Sark couldn't see any. He knew the CIA would not veer from its procedures but he also knew that he should have seen more by now.

Sark's eyebrows bunched together in slight confusion. It didn't really matter though. He wasn't worried about the CIA. His thoughts wandered to Sydney for a moment, but he quickly pushed them away. His plan was complicated enough without thinking of her.

His thoughts were interrupted when a large, burly, uncouth man suddenly barged his way onto the tower's balcony. "Ok, Mr. Sark. I've got the people out on patrols, but I don't see why. We're leaving in a few days and this place is deserted. Mr. Sloane left. What are we supposed to guarding anyways?"

Sark fixed the man with a cool, condescending glaze and smiled. Soon he would be rid of this man and the other men he had chosen to stay tonight. He had faith that Agent Vaughn and his team would be able to take care of that for him. "Thank you. I trust that you will be checking up on them periodically. Mr. Sloane is still interested in certain assets that we have here. I am quite certain that he would be very unhappy if your men were responsible for any damage to those assets."

The man tried to contain a snarl but he was not entirely effective. It was obvious to Sark that this man thought he was only a young punk but from his attempt to contain his snarl it was also obvious that he recognized Sark's rank. Sark gave him a cold look and soon the man excused himself to make his rounds.

His small smile returned as he lifted the binoculars back up to his face and scanned the horizon. It was easy enough for him to find the man he had spotted before. He looked to be heading in the direction of the garage. He packed his binoculars away in his jacket pocket and headed towards the door. He didn't care if the CIA meant to take the truck, but he had to make sure that whoever this was, that he didn't take his transportation out of here, or worse yet, destroy all the vehicles.

Sark maneuvered himself down the small staircase leading from the observation tower and made his way to the main security room on the first floor. He opened the door, only to be greeted by two corpses slumped over the controls. He looked around. There was only mild blood spatter on the walls. Whoever had done this had obviously known what they were doing. All the security monitors were showing static and he noticed that the alarm system had been deactivated.

Sark shrugged to himself. Perhaps the CIA really would rid him of all of Sloane's most loyal goons. Without another moment's hesitation, Sark pivoted on his heel and continued towards his escape. A smirk crossed his face when he saw the guard he had been talking to earlier, lying in a pool of his own blood.

The garage was quiet and dark and for a moment Sark thought that maybe he had managed to beat his competitor. He crept through the shadow, scanning the room for any sign of movement. He made his way to his jeep and was about to open the door when he heard the distinct sound of movement behind him.

"Freeze!" 

Sark froze. 

"Put your hands up above your head and turn around slowly." 

Sark complied but the voice was tickling his memory. When he turned around he was shocked to see the dirty face of the reporter he had kidnapped some years ago. His name was…."Mr. Tippin."

Will froze as he recognized Sark. Sark used his momentary shock to step forward, kick the rifle out of his hand and send it clattering to the floor. Once disarmed, it was easy enough for Sark to drop him to the floor. He quickly stepped over Tippin's unconscious form, all the while shaking his head. He had been surprised too many times already tonight but he found it unbelievable that the CIA would include Mr. Tippin in their rescue team. He rubbed his head in concern. Maybe he had overestimated Agent Vaughn.

He was about to step in the car when he heard an ominous click. A split second later, the garage was filled with the spray of machine gun fire and his left hand exploded in pain. He dove into his seat, started the car and dropped it in gear. The pain in his hand was blinding but he managed to momentarily block it out. With his left hand cradled uselessly in his lap he managed to slam the jeep back out of the garage.

__

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Sydney heard some scuffling on the other side of her door and awoke. She never slept deeply anymore. She looked up towards the door in time to see it swing open. A tall man was silhouetted against the back light and she shied her face away from the light.

"Syd?" came an anguished voice from the face she couldn't see.

She tried to shield her eyes and look at him once more but he was still standing in the light. He must have seen her movements though because he rushed forward to her and grabbed her arm.

"Sydney?"

She looked at the face and did not recognize it immediately. It was striped in dark paint to distort the features and her tired mind could not instantly process all the information. When she looked at his green eyes though she knew she was looking something so beautiful that she could not comprehend it. 

"Sydney, it's me. Vaughn." The voice said to her quietly but with some urgency.

Her mind took a moment to process what it had previously deemed to be unthinkable. Subconsciously she thought about all that this face implied and then her mind decided that it had been right to begin with. It was unthinkable. It had to protect itself.

She backed away from him, almost stumbling on her own feet. "No, no, no...not again. I can't go there again…." she muttered to herself and the apparition before her. She shook her head from side to side trying to banish the sight from her eyes.

Vaughn held her arm though and refused to let her get away.

"Syd, it's me. I'm here, so is Will and so is your mom. We came to get you out of here. Please."

The voice. She couldn't shake the voice from her head. It seemed to be everywhere and it threatened to burst forth the protective dam that she had built. She covered her ear with her other hand and shut her eyes. The pain in her head was building but on some part she could feel the dam starting to crumble.

"Sydney!" Vaughn screamed at her as he saw her trying to block away the sight of him. He grabbed her other arm and brought it away from her ear. The movement caused her to open her eyes and stare at him directly in face.

She knew the moment the dam burst because she felt herself shattering. The light, the pain, the love, the agony, the horrible longings as she felt her love ripped from her chest. The face that she'd tried desperately to never remember because of the anguish it brought her. All the memories that she'd locked away so that she could survive were bursting forward with a blinding pain in her head. 

She moved her arms up to cradle her head as Vaughn stood and watched her.

"Syd we got to go, it's going to be dawn soon. Are you ok? Can you walk?"

Sydney stared at him with pain and horror smeared across her face. Her mouth opened and closed like she was trying to form words but no sound came out of her throat.

Michael tried to pick her up, force her to move with him but she stood rooted to the ground. He turned to stare at her. Cupping her face with his hands he said to her gently, "Come on Syd. Come back to me."

With tears appearing in her eyes she finally managed a whisper. "Vaughn?" her voice cracked.

He smiled at her, tears starting to form in his own eyes. "Yeah, Syd. It's me. Are you ok?"

She stood there staring at him, the pain in her head almost blinding her.

Vaughn was shocked at the agony he saw in her eyes. And though he hated to rush her he knew they needed to leave. "Sydney we have to go. The sun is rising, we'll be caught if we don't go."

With a croak from a voice that has not been used in a while she whispered. "…Vaughn…" He saw the tears falling and it seemed almost like she was bleeding from her eyes. "There's no more sun, there's no more light…Don't you understand, there's no Dawn anymore…"

Vaughn cradled her against his chest as she let herself collapse in his arms. "Yes, Syd there will be. I promise you there will be light again in your world. We just have to get out of here."

"No Michael, there won't be." Sydney cried. Her words muffled slightly as she spoke into his chest. "Sloane took her. He took her. She's gone. He took our Dawn. He stole my light. It was the only thing I had left and he took her too. He took our daughter."

__

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise.


	9. Chapter 8

****

Part 8.

__

This song is Piece of My Heart by Janis Joplin  
  
_Didn't I make you feel like you were the only man_

Didn't I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can?  
Honey, you know I did!

Vaughn felt his knees start to buckle as his world collapsed around him. "W-what?" he stuttered.

Sydney looked at him, one hand still cradling her head, the tears running freely down her face. Her eyes expressed the truth that Vaughn refused to believe.

They stood staring at one another for a moment or eternity until Irina interrupted them when she came barging through the open door, her rifle readied. She stopped short as she saw her daughter being held in Vaughn's arms, her mind not picking up on the grief in the room. She was too relieved to see Sydney alive. "Sydney!" she exclaimed with relief and happiness.

Sydney was numb to the shock of seeing her mother in front of her, but the comfort of her waiting arms was too much of a temptation to resist.

"Mom?" Sydney cried in disbelief. She launched herself away from the man who was shattering her heart with his very existence and opened her arms to her mother. She didn't make it more than a step before her legs collapsed underneath her, but Irina wasted no time in going towards her and grasping her in her arms. 

"Yes, Sydney, it's me. You're safe. We're taking you out of here, sweetie I promise." Irina grasped her tightly to her chest. Sydney started to sob and Irina looked quizzically at Vaughn. Her confusion increased when she saw him looking back at Sydney with a look of terror on his face. 

Irina turned back to Sydney. "What's wrong honey? You're free, you can leave here. You will never have to see Sloane again. I promise!" Sydney sobbed harder, her voice muffled and unclear. Irina moved her head closer to Sydney's mouth so that she could hear her.

Vaughn saw Irina's face pale as she listened to Sydney's words, but he couldn't say anything. All he could think about was Sydney's words… _Sloane took her. He took her. She's gone. He took our Dawn…He took our daughter._ He felt cold all over, like someone had ripped his heart out and it was no longer able to circulate blood around his body. In some part of his brain he knew that he had to push this aside, deal with it later. They still had to get out of here. _He took our daughter_…

Irina glanced at Vaughn and shook her head sadly. He was standing there, his arms dangling loosely at his side, his rifle slung over his shoulder and his face still registering shock. He was useless to her right now so she turned to her radio. "Scratcher this is Anastasia. We have Mountaineer. Are you ready?"

Will's voice came over the radio a little shaky. "Roger Anastasia. I will be at Point Bravo in five minutes."

Irina lifted Sydney into her arms and stood up. It was obvious to her that Sydney would not be able to get herself out of here. "Vaughn!" her voice hard and brittle managed to focus his attention. She knew that if he didn't move on from his shock they would all be trapped. So she did the only thing she could do. She looked at him coldly. "Are you just going to stand there, or do you want to move us out of here so that one day we can actually try to find my granddaughter?"

Vaughn shut his jaw firmly, his eyes turning cold and hard as he looked at Irina.

If Irina had ever wanted to see what the death of innocence looked like, all she had to do was look at Vaughn's face. She nodded to indicate for him to take point and he complied by bringing his rifle to the ready position. For a brief, wild moment she thought he would shoot her, even as she held her daughter but after searing her soul with his eyes he turned towards the door. After looking up and down the hall outside the cell he motioned for them to follow.

__

And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I've had enough,  
But I'm gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough. 

They made their way down a series of hallways. They arrived at an intersection and Vaughn raised his right hand up to indicate that she should stop, so Irina crouched down holding Sydney close to her chest. She heard a scuffle as a guard approached but Vaughn wasted no time in gutting him with his bayonet and following it up by smashing the butt of his rifle on the bridge of his nose. The guard never got a chance to call out because with one fluid movement, Vaughn grabbed the knife from his webbing and quickly slit the man's throat. 

Irina was a little taken aback by the excessive violence but Vaughn didn't even seem to notice it. He looked down the intersecting hallway and motioned for them to follow. He merely stepped over the pool of blood and continued on point.

__

I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,  
Take it!  
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!  
Oh, oh, break it!  
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They arrived at the small apartment that Marco had set up for them in Rome. It had been an exhausting trip. A drive that should have taken them sixteen hours took almost twenty-four. They didn't have to worry about being followed; they had killed everyone at the military compound. Well, everyone except Sark. But they'd had to cross the borders where they were not being watched and more often than not that involved going cross-country. Sydney had kept her face buried in her mother's lap; unable or unwilling to look at a world bathed in sunlight while Vaughn and Will had alternated driving. There hadn't been much talking during the trip; just some terse comments from Irina bringing Will up to speed and some hysteria from Will as he related his encounter with Sark. Vaughn had been silent throughout the journey; absorbed in his own private hell. 

Will carried Sydney inside; she had fallen into a deep sleep since they had crossed the Italian border. Vaughn came in carrying two packs and some supplies that they had picked up on the way and Irina came in carrying the remaining pack and supplies.

Will laid Sydney down on the couch and she stirred. Will collapsed next to her and started taking off his boots. After Vaughn and Irina dropped off their supplies in the kitchen they also returned to the living room.

Irina looked over her daughter. "We will need to get a doctor to come see you."

"I'm fine." Sydney said groggily, trying to shake the sleep off.

Irina put her hands on her hips and looked at her daughter. "No, you're not Sydney. How could you possibly be fine?"

"What can be healed has been." Sydney said plainly. "Sark had a doctor come and see me after…after she was born." Sydney turned away from the sharp eyes of her mother but she felt someone put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up into Vaughn's face. It was the first contact she'd had with him since they left the compound. 

He gently squeezed her shoulder. His eyes mirrored the pain in hers but he tried to give her a supportive smile. He turned to Irina, his voice allowing no argument. "Let her be for now."

Irina glared at him for a moment before turning away. 

"Sark helped us find you as well," he said quietly to Sydney.

Sydney's forehead wrinkled in confusion. She looked back to her mother, her face exhausted. "Mom?"

Irina reluctantly turned back around. "Yes?"

Sydney looked like she was trying to focus her thoughts for a moment. "How does Sark fit into all this?"

Irina looked at the battered form of her daughter and heard the echo of this question from all the previous times it had been asked. She saw a woman on the verge of being consumed by emptiness and she didn't know if she dared to answer her question. But when she looked at Sydney more closely, she also saw a glimmer of the person she used to be. She knew it was a gamble. But perhaps she could at least give her daughter the answers she needed.

"Sark is Rambaldi's grandchild." Irina said plainly.

Vaughn snorted in disbelief and Sydney responded quickly, almost without thinking. "Rambaldi didn't have any heirs."

Irina smirked. "No he didn't. He had a daughter instead."

There was silence for a moment. "Whoa. Just a moment. You're serious?" Vaughn asked astounded and Irina nodded.

"I think you'd better start at the beginning." Sydney said, trying to sit up straighter.

Irina saw the fire just beneath her daughter's eyes and mistook it for her daughter's spirit returning. She knew that there were other things that they should be discussing but in an attempt to fuel her daughter's fire, Irina continued. "First Sydney, you need to understand that everything I did, everything that has happened in the last thirty years, started because I loved you so much."

Sydney's face changed to confusion and horror as she looked back to Vaughn and then her mother.

Irina saw the look and quickly tried to resolve the misunderstanding. "No Sydney I didn't kill Vaughn's father. You have to believe me. He's the one I didn't kill." She pleaded with her daughter.

Irina stood up and started to pace. She rubbed her face with her hand before attempting to continue. She saw that three pairs of eyes were following her intently but that the look on her daughter's face was not assured. "I know this won't make everything better Sydney. I accept that. I just want you to understand that I love you."

Sydney continued to look at her mother with a guarded look and Irina knew that she had to continue. Perhaps her honesty now was her only chance for redemption. "I was young and foolish back then. I thought I was doing my patriotic duty." She laughed quietly at herself. "The fact that I deceived you father, that I stole his secrets and passed them back to my superiors. This is all true. I was in every way a model KGB agent." 

Irina paused a moment. "I was, until I fell in love with him. Don't think that I had some kind of epiphany or anything because I didn't. Not right away. I didn't accept my feelings, I tried to ignore them, I fought them. For a long while I still continued with my work. Then you were born."

Irina stopped. She looked at Sydney and saw the pain of childbirth echoed in her face. She didn't dare to hope for understanding just yet, but maybe she dared to believe that it could be possible one day. "Then slowly I started to hate my work. I would avoid my contacts, make excuses why I couldn't meet with them. They started to suspect me and I think I just didn't care. Suddenly I wanted a normal life. One day, I think you were about two, I received a list of instructions. The KGB was getting involved in some new intel and they wanted the CIA team that was also working in this area eliminated. I found out later that this 'new intel' of course was Rambaldi's works."

Irina shook her head. "I couldn't do it. I didn't want to do it. I knew that if I did, that I would be past the point of no return, I would never be able to defect to the US. And maybe perhaps my superiors knew this as well. I don't know."

"The day after I received my instructions I packed you up in your car seat and drove to a pick up. I was handed a plastic tube with documents in it that I was supposed to deliver to another party. As I was leaving my meet, I noticed that I was being tailed. I pulled off on a side street and this man got out of the car. He held out his badge. He was CIA. He was your father." She nodded to Vaughn. "He said that he had a few questions for me about the man I just met."

"I remembered your father's name from the instructions I had been given the day before. I realized that this was my chance. Maybe the only chance that I was going to get. So I told your father who I was meeting and why. I told him who I was and what my orders were. I begged him to get me out of this life."

"Unfortunately he didn't believe me, and I couldn't really blame him. So I went back to my car and grabbed the documents that I had picked up and I gave them to your father. I had no idea what they were. He took them and said that he would contact me in a few days."

"The rest I told Mr. Vaughn and Mr Tippin a few days ago but basically the documents that I handed Vaughn's father talked about a weapon and had a picture of Vaughn's father in them. They talked about how a code within his body was necessary to activate The Flute. William killed himself to prevent that from ever happening. Before he died he made me promise to track down the people that wanted this manuscript and stop them from ever assembling this weapon. I promised him I would."

"I had to destroy William's body so that his DNA could not be recovered. I…I might have been tempted not keep my promise to him, but I was discovered leaving the burning warehouse by the man who I was supposed to have handed the manuscript over to. It turns out I knew him and he knew me. And suddenly he knew really who I was. He knew Jack and he knew about you Sydney. It was Arvin Sloane. Arvin Sloane was working with KGB to solve Rambaldi's puzzles."

"I'm sure that you can understand the problems that this created. I had no choice but to make it look like I had carried out my orders in killing the CIA agents. Arvin had no idea what was in that manuscript so I told him that William Vaughn had confiscated it from me when he pulled me over on the day of the pick up. I just told him that I was completing my orders given to me by my superiors. Then over the next few weeks I did. I had to remain KGB. Sloane would have had no compunction in telling my superiors about any deviations I made from my orders and he could just as easily have turned me in to the FBI. He had me exactly where he wanted me. Any hope that I had for a normal life was crushed. All I could do was keep my promise to Michael's father and see Sloane rot in hell one day."

Vaughn turned his face away from Irina. He had on some level known that she had carried out the rest of her orders and though she may not have killed his father, she had still killed eleven other CIA agents. She had killed eleven other fathers. 

Sydney was forced to consider the implications of her words. "Go on." she demanded from her mother.

"As far as Sloane goes there's not much more to say. He was obsessed with Rambaldi's work and had every intention of assembling all his inventions. After I returned to Russia, it was some years before I was able to pursue him. I did realize however that in order to stop Sloane I had to acquire as much of Rambaldi's works as I could."

"I'd like to say that I was unaffected by my pursuit, but I wasn't. There is great power in Rambaldi's work." Irina's voice trailed off.

"And Sark?" Vaughn asked, impatiently.

Irina glared at him for a moment. "Eventually I discovered that Rambaldi did indeed have a daughter with a mistress of his, but because by then he had become the Pope's architect he thought it wise to keep her a secret. I suspect he had no desire to see her become a pawn in a political marriage, so he hid her away. The information that I had found indicated that she would have Rambaldi's greatest prize with her. So I went after her."

"Well, to make a long story short, I traced her down to a small island north of England. I went there fully expecting to find some remains in a grave somewhere but instead when I got to the small village and found out that she was living on a farm!"

A far away look came onto Irina's face as she remembered. "I went to the farmhouse and knocked on the door and this old, old woman opened it. She looked to be over ninety but I later found out that I had underestimated by a couple of centuries."

"Anyway, she opened the door, took one look at me and started screaming. In retrospect now that I've learned about the prophecy with Sydney's likeness in it, I guess it makes more sense. That old woman was Rambaldi's mistress. She must have seen his work."

Irina shrugged. She sat down on a chair beside the couch to finish her story. "Well, the daughter came rushing to the door when she heard her mother scream and I explained to her who I was. I asked her for any information that she might have had about this prize that her father wrote about but she started screaming too. I got nothing of any use out of them. However, when I searched their house I found Sark locked in the attic."

"They just let you search their house?" Will interjected.

Irina turned her tired gaze towards Will. "I wouldn't say that they had much say in the matter."

Will nodded in understanding and then decided to push his luck. It was not often that he got a straight answer from this woman. "So do we get to know his first name now or is it some big family secret?"

Irina raised her eyebrow. "Mr. Tippin, that statement is not as stupid as it sounds."

Will tried to digest her answer but he just came away feeling like he had been insulted. He slumped in a nearby chair allowing Irina to continue. 

"Actually Sark has no name. You have to understand that these two women were born five hundred years ago. Back then and even in some places today, a person's name is considered a sacred thing. Many different cultures believe that a person's soul is revealed through their name and believe me, the irony is not lost on me."

"Well as it turns out Rambaldi made a few more prophecies including ones about his future heir – his greatest prize. I don't know what was in this prophecy; Sark never spoke of it to me. All that I could gather is that they scared his mother and grandmother so much that they thought that if they didn't name him, he would never really exist."

"Talk about your ostrich avoidance plan," murmured Will from his corner.

"Why didn't they just kill him when he was born then?" asked Vaughn.

Irina shrugged her shoulders. "I do not know. I freed Sark and we talked. We decided that we could be mutually beneficial to each other. I introduced Sark to Khasinau and this greatly increased my standing with him. That's part of the reason I was able to form my own organization. I assume that my associates just got tired of referring to Sark as 'Hey You' so they named him Sark after the island where he was from. The name just stuck."

Sydney shivered. "Creepy."

"Does that answer your question?"

Sydney nodded, unable to muster the look of shock that her mother's revelations deserved. She was too drained.

"Good," said Irina standing back up. "Then we've talked enough for now. You need to get cleaned up and rested before we decided what to do next. Come on." 

__

Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night,  
Babe, I cry all the time!

Irina brought Sydney into the shared washroom in their apartment. Thankfully it was big and spacious. Sydney took her arm off of her mom's shoulder and slowly walked to the mirror. She was shocked at the apparition that stared back at her. Her hair was all tangled and matted; her face was covered in scratches and dirt. She put her hand up to her face to make sure it was her own that was looking back at her.

"Do you want me to leave you here by yourself Sydney or do you want a hand?" Irina asked her gently.

Sydney shook her head. "No, stay."

Irina was a little relieved. She turned to the tub and started running the water. Rummaging around the cabinets she found some shampoo and poured it into the bath to make some bubbles. When the tub was sufficiently full she turned to her daughter. Sydney was staring at her.

"I'm sorry." Irina told her daughter honestly.

Sydney nodded silently. "Mom—there's so too much to say. My mind can't even process all the things that you have told us tonight."

"I know. And I don't expect anything from you. I just want to help you now."

Sydney nodded again in acceptance.

Irina smiled tentatively at her daughter as she helped Sydney undress and led her to her waiting bath. She watched Sydney sink into the suds her eyes closed in relief.

"Relax, in the bath for a moment Sydney. I will be right back." Irina let herself out of the bathroom and found Will and Vaughn in the small kitchenette. 

"Tippin, I need you to go into town, find a market or store or something and buy Sydney some new clothes. Actually while you are at it, you should buy us all some new clothes." Irina dug in her pocket for a wad of cash and handed it to Will.

"But, I don't speak Italian!" Will exclaimed, exhausted and not at all eager to venture back out into the roads. Irina fixed him with a glare and it didn't take long for Will to pull his boots back on and walk out the door.

Vaughn turned to Irina reluctantly. "How is she?"

Irina shrugged. "I don't know yet. Why don't you go clean yourself up? I think there's a small bathroom attached to the main bedroom. I will let you know when I know more."

__

And each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the pain,  
But when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again. 

  
Irina opened the door to the washroom and her heart lept into her throat when she saw Sydney with her head under the water. Sydney came back up for air and tried to lather her hair with the suds. Her hair was so matted though that she pulled out a chunk in frustration.

Irina went and sat on the edge of the tub and helped her wash her hair. She even managed to find a bottle of conditioner under the sink, which she applied copiously to Sydney's hair. Sydney allowed her mother to tend to her as she closed her eyes. 

After she was finished she motioned for Sydney to stand up and she held a big white towel up for her. Irina then motioned for Sydney to sit on the edge of the tub while she stood behind her and tried to gently comb her hair out.

As Irina was combing out the tangles in her hair, Sydney spoke. "Mom, what are you doing here?"

Irina paused a moment, her heart sinking. "Agent Vaughn brought me along to help get you out of there."

"Yes but…But...where's Dad? Why isn't he here?"

Irina let the silence fill the room as she wondered how to answer her daughter. They hadn't decided to avoid the topic but she wondered how much pain her daughter really could bear.

Sydney turned around to face her mother. "What is it?"

Irina put down the hairbrush and stepped back. "I'm so sorry Sydney." Irina paused, unwilling to deliver the bad news. She saw Sydney's face pale as she pushed herself away. 

"What do you mean you're sorry? Where's Dad?"

Irina closed her eyes at the accusations in her daughter's face but she stayed silent.

"No, no, no." Sydney tried to back away from her mother. "That's not possible. Dad's ok right?"

Irina opened her eyes and shook her head sadly. "I'm so sorry Sydney. He died a few months after you were captured."

Sydney sunk back down onto the edge of the tub. Irina tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder but Sydney angrily brushed it away and stood up. The anger making red spots appear on her pale cheeks. "When were you guys going to tell me? We spent the last day in a car not talking about anything and the last half an hour talking about Sark! Didn't anyone think it would be a good idea to tell me?!"

Irina let Sydney yell at her until she tired of it. Drained, Sydney sat back down on the edge of the tub and put her head in her hands. Irina saw her sobbing and leaned down to hug her. This time Sydney allowed the embrace and sobbed openly in her mother's arms.

__

I'll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it!  
Take it!  
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.  
Oh, oh, break it!

Irina sat on the edge of the tub and held her daughter as she cried, feeling her own tears fall down her face. 

"I guess in some way I should have known," Sydney said quietly with tears in her throat.

Irina brushed some stray hairs from her daughter's face. "How could you possibly have known?"

Sydney looked up into her mother's eyes and then looked away. "Because he was with me," she said so quietly that Irina had to strain to hear her.

"Of course he was." Irina said reassuringly. "He will be with you for the rest of your life."

Sydney shook her head. "No, I mean I saw him. In that cold, dirty cell – I saw him. At first I hated seeing him because I thought that I was going crazy. I screamed at him to go away and he did. It was forever until I saw him again."

Irina stared at her daughter's face, encouraging her to continue.

"I saw him again the night she was born. He stayed with me the whole night. He came back to me the night they took her away. And after that he would come and visit me every once in a while."

"I was so happy to see him. I hurt so much but when he was there, I felt like a little girl again. Like everything was going to be ok. I didn't care if it meant I was going crazy. When they took her away I felt like I was going to die."

Tears started to run down Sydney's face again. Irina grabbed some toilet paper and wiped them away.

"You think I am crazy, don't you mom?"

Irina smiled a lopsided smile at her. "No, honey. I don't." She opened her arms and gave Sydney a warm hug. "You should get some sleep."

Sydney nodded feeling drained and empty but then she looked in the direction of the door with a fleeting look of panic.

Irina saw the look. "Don't punish him or yourself for the things that have happened. He needs you and much as you need him. Don't push him away because you think the pain will be easier to bear that way. Trust me, I know that it isn't."

Sydney stood back and looked over her mom. Her brain could not really comprehend the enormity of the changes that had surfaced in the last day so she just accepted the love that her mother had to give her. Love had been sparse the last year and she was willing to take it wherever she could get it, including hallucinations and sometimes murders. She put on the large t-shirt and shorts that her mom had brought in for her and turned back to her mom.

"Thanks mom."

Irina nodded silently and watched her daughter slowly leave the bathroom. Her strength was slowly coming back to her and she knew that the superficial scars she had would heal someday. It was the scars buried deep within her that Irina wasn't so sure about. She got up to place the hairbrush on the counter and noticed that her hand was trembling. 

It had taken every inch of will power that she had not to breakdown in front of Sydney when she had told her about seeing Jack. She looked down at her left hand to her wedding band. A circle of gold to symbolize love that had no beginning and no end. She felt tears threaten to break through again but she let them fall. It was safe to cry now. 

She slid to the floor of the bathroom and held her head in her hands. Maybe she wasn't crazy, maybe there could be a happier ending that she had been willing to hope for. Jack had come to visit her as well. From the night that Vaughn had come to tell her that Jack had died, to a few months ago, she had seen Jack almost everyday. He didn't really speak to her, but if she closed her eyes it was like she could hear him. She had thought that she was losing her mind, but she hadn't cared. Not if it meant that she could believe that Jack had forgiven her. She had believed that her sanity was a small price to bear. That's why she hadn't spoken. If she was quiet she could sometimes hear him whispering in her mind.

What did it mean if Sydney had seen him too? Did that mean that there was an existence after death. She had always hoped for one, hoped that there would exist a time when she could be free of the chains that bound her. But she had never really dared to believe it. She had learned at an early age that it was better to be pleasantly surprised than cruelly disappointed. Dare she hope to believe that Jack's love for her now was real?

__

Have another little piece of my heart now, baby,  
You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good. 

Sydney stood at the door to a bedroom. She had heard her mother send Will out to get clothes and the other rooms were obviously empty. She put her hand up to the door to touch it. It was cool and hard. She knew that Vaughn was somewhere on the other side. Did she dare to open it? Did she dare to believe that he still loved her, despite the pain she had caused him over the last day? Was it still possible for her to sink into his arms and believe that his love for her was real? Did she dare?


	10. Chapter 9 Rated R

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful reviews so far. You guys really make my day. I was sort of worried there for a while, wondering if anyone was actually reading this fic.  
  
Warning this next part is RATED R for sexually explicit scenes. If anyone doesn't want to read it because of this, you can let me know and I can work on an edited version.  
  
I also wanted to express to everyone in light of world events, that my use of violence and destruction in this fic is not meant to be gratuitous but rather it serves specific purposes. I hope however, that even with this dark side to my story everyone is still able to enjoy it. My heart and prayers go out to everyone involved in the conflict in the Middle East.  
  
So without further ado!

Part 9.

__

This song is Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones

I see a red door and I want it painted black

No colors anymore I want them to turn black

Sydney stood in the hallway with her hand poised on the doorknob and hesitated. Though Vaughn had not known it, she had seen the look of horror on his face after she had told him about their daughter. That look had pierced her heart like nothing else had been able to. His silence throughout the whole trip out of Spain had done little to reassure her. It was only the show of support that he had given her on the couch while they talked with her mother that gave her any courage to approach him.

Standing in the hallway, she thought back to her time in captivity; the darkness, the coldness; the constant feeling of emptiness that she'd had. It was easier for her to remember certain parts of it now that the security blanket over her mind had lifted. But now she was scared that those feelings would feel like joy compared to the thought of Vaughn hating her for losing their daughter. Or worse yet - for having their daughter, but that was a thought she didn't dare to think about.

Her hand trembled on the doorknob. She had let herself become weaker towards the end of her pregnancy. Maybe that was why she had not been able to fight back enough. She knew that in the past she had been able to take down three men twice her size at the same time, but when Sloane and the other man had come to take her baby away, she had been able to do nothing. Oh, she had screamed and yelled and tried to punch and kick but she had been so weak. The man had been able to restrain her by himself. Maybe if she had kept herself together, kept herself in shape she would have been able to stop them. Maybe she could have used the opportunity for escape, but instead she had been helpless. She had failed her daughter and she had failed Vaughn. 

Sydney shuddered slightly. The feelings of helplessness still carved in her mind. Would he ever be able to forgive her? Would she ever be able to forgive herself?

__

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Vaughn sat by the window looking out. It was a large bay window with a small ledge in front that was large enough to sit on. He didn't know what he was feeling except that he felt disoriented and empty. All he had wanted a day ago was to find Sydney, hold her in his arms and beg her to forgive him for taking so long to find her. Now, he realized how foolish he had been. There were some things that could never be forgiven.

How had he allowed her to get pregnant? He thought to himself. Well, really he knew. They had not always been careful, they had often allowed their desire to consume their senses. It had been like that from the beginning. For over a year before her capture they had sometimes taken precautions, sometimes not. Sydney had seemed to be on a high since the Alliance had fallen, willing to let herself go in the heat of the moment. She had brushed away his concerns, telling him that in all likelihood she probably would never be able to have children. After all, she hadn't exactly been kind to her body and neither had anyone else.

Vaughn shook his head in anger at his thought. How dare he blame her? He should have known better. But he acknowledged that he hadn't fought her too hard on the issue. Most times he hadn't even thought about it. When they were together she felt like a drug to him, one that he couldn't live out. One that intoxicated him and left him senseless.

And because of his thoughtlessness, she was left to bear the consequences of their actions, alone. He felt the pain in his heart intensify as he thought about his double failure to her. Could she ever forgive him? Could he ever forgive himself?

He happened to glance out the window and saw the bustling street below him. A part of his brain was amazed to see how much of Europe seemed to be unaffected by the horror he had witnessed in the States. The glowing alarm clock near the bed indicated that it was past eight o'clock in the morning. He could see some teenagers on their mopeds weaving their way through traffic, an old lady feeding the pigeons in the piazza down below. It looked like a town ready to wake up. He saw a few armed policemen on the street corners, but that seemed to be the only concession the Italians had made to the New World Order. 

Then something in particular caught his attention. A young girl was walking down the street, gaily. She had long brown hair and a happy smile on her face. Her designer summer dress swishing around her as she met up with some friends and kissed them happily on their cheeks.

Vaughn was surprised at the anger he felt witnessing this young girl. He knew intuitively that his anger was misplaced but nonetheless he felt his jaw clench as the girl threw her head back and laughed. She had a carefree flair that seemed naïve and innocent. But she also seemed happy. And Vaughn knew that it was not at this girl that his anger was directed but rather at life in general. Who had decided which girls got to laugh and which had to cry? Why did this girl deserve to be happy and yet Sydney had been dealt more pain than anyone should have to bear. Why couldn't this girl have been Sydney?

__

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black

With flowers and my love both never to come back

Will stood on the crowded corner of Via Portuense and Via Ippolito Nievo and shook his head in shock. He had been wandering the streets of Rome for several hours now and discovered some very important facts. The first of these, was that most stores were only open from 9 am – 1 pm and 4 pm – 8 pm Tuesday to Saturday, except for some grocery stores that were open Mondays but closed on Thursday afternoons in the winter and Saturday afternoons in the summer, but all of which were always closed on Sundays. The second thing that he had learned so far was that today was Sunday and nothing was open except for the markets. So he found himself in Porta Portese along with several thousand other people trying to shop in an open market. He was shocked. Will didn't think he'd ever seen so many people in one place. There were people on all sides of him, pushing him this way and that. He pushed his way towards a vendor but the crowd continued on and he was forced past the clothing vendor and on to a shoe vendor. He shook his head. He didn't want any shoes. But the crowd had an anxiousness to it and a restless sort of energy that seemed to Will to almost border on panic. Nobody was willing to let him move against the crowd.

The crowd continued pushing him past and it was not long before he saw another clothing vendor and latched himself on to the table in front. He scanned the merchandise and found a few dark T-shirts with some writing on them. He waved some Euros at a tired looking man and tried to avoid having his back pocket picked while he waited for some change. The man gave him back some money but Will didn't even stop to check the amount. He was feeling claustrophobic and nauseous and wanted to leave as quickly as possible. After making a few more purchases he found himself on the edge of the market and decided to take advantage of the situation and leave. The side street was like a ghost town compared to the chaos he had just left behind, but he had gotten turned around and didn't know where he was.

As he wandered down the street, Will came across some teenagers walking down an intersecting street. He paused for a moment, amazed at their innocence. They were laughing and joking and teasing each other and for a moment Will was transported back to a time when not everything was a matter of life and death. Unlike the crowd that he had just left behind, these teenagers did not seem to absorb the evil within each other but rather to repel it. Will wanted to approach them, to bask in their innocence but they were walking too fast and soon they were walking past him. As they crossed the street and moved past him, Will felt his stomach drop and the nausea return. One boy was talking loudly to another, obviously teasing him about something, but the loud boy also had a knapsack over his right shoulder. There was nothing unusual about that except that this one had a gas mask hanging off the back of it.

Will almost retched on the sidewalk but he forced himself to continue on. He hurried down the street, not paying attention to anything until he was completely lost. He felt the panic start to return as he looked around and saw no familiar street signs or landmarks. 

Will stopped as he came to a piazza across from a large church. He hunched over and leaned on the water fountain to catch his breath and he tried to force back the bile in his throat. After a few moments he was able to look around and force his mind concentrate on getting him back to the apartment. 

He saw a few people trickling in and out and figured he could try and find someone who spoke English and ask for some directions. He walked up the steps to the church but no one was coming out anymore so he figured he would just venture inside to see if anyone was about.

He cracked open the door and peered in. Will stood and gawked at what he saw inside. From the outside, the church had looked old and run down but the inside of it looked like it belonged in a cathedral. He didn't even notice that he walked right in and stood gaping. The ceiling was a huge vaulted ceiling lined in gold and had intricate paintings around each of the cupolas. He wandered down the side isle, mesmerized by the paintings and statues on the walls that he didn't even notice when he sat down in one of the pews.

Whether it was the atmosphere of the church or its spaciousness Will soon felt better as the tension from the last day melted away. Sitting down he looked around and was reminded of the last time that he was in a church, almost five months ago.

The loneliness hit him all at once as he thought of where he was and what he was doing. Sure Vaughn had been a good friend this last year, they had stuck together through the loss of Sydney, Jack and his family, they'd had many light night drinks to ease their pain together. But now he had Sydney back again and Will was unsure where he fit in now. The only other person he knew in this continent, not counting the people who wanted to kill him, was a woman who scared him senseless. And he was not entirely sure that she wouldn't kill him either.

He thought back to his sister, Amy. He missed her most of all. They had grown up together and unlike most siblings there were always pretty close. She had been the smart but eccentric one while he had been the artsy guy. He laughed to himself though the tears that were starting to form as he thought of everyone's reactions when he introduced his sister to them. Everyone thought that just because she liked to dress loud that she was stupid. He smiled. She had shown everyone.

He remembered how proud he had been when she'd graduated collage. She had studied physics in school and she had been so excited about it. He remembered the day she had shown him around the lab that she worked in and had pointed at various pieces of equipment that he couldn't even begin to name. He'd laughed at her and called her names and she retaliated by making fun of his writing.

He missed his whole family so much. 

Will rubbed his eyes to wipe away his tears and got up slowly. He was loath to leave the quiet peacefulness of the church, but he knew he had to get back. He turned to leave but stopped as a memory tickled the back of his mind. He tried to pin it down but it was elusive. 

He moved towards the isle of the pew and started walking down the side of the church. The architect, through his use of many vaulted ceilings and pillars had created a hallway down both sides of the church to house all the statues and paintings. He hadn't realized that he had walked all the way to the front of the church on his way in and now looking down the hall, he appreciated the grandeur of the church even more. 

Suddenly something Vaughn had told him a few days ago clicked in his mind. The beauty of the church forgotten, Will raced towards the door to the church and almost ran down a young priest greeting the parishioners. 

He grabbed the young priest and shook his outstretched hand. "Internet?" he asked praying that the priest would understand. The priest looked at him shocked but he seemed to understand because he spouted off some Italian and made some gestures with his hands.

Will's incomprehension must have been obvious on his face because the priest slowed down and made some directions with his hands and gave him something that sounded like a street name.

Thankful, Will shook the priest's hand once more and bolted out of the church.

__

I see people turn their heads and quickly look away

Like a new born baby it just happens every day

Sydney slowly opened the door and let herself in. She saw Vaughn silhouetted against the bay window and she had to brace herself against the doorframe. She saw him look in her direction and somehow she found the strength to go towards him.

She let herself collapse on the sill next to him, her head down. She was too scared to look at him directly until she felt a warm hand on her cheek lifting her face up. She shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand while Vaughn grasped the other.

"Syd…"

She felt the tears start to form in her eyes. "I'm so sorry Michael…"

"No Syd!" Vaughn interrupted. "You have nothing to be sorry about, it's me! I'm the one that failed you. I'm the one that took so long to find you and forced you to go through everything by yourself! I'm the one that should be saying 'sorry'. And I would, believe me I would, except that I think 'sorry' is just not enough."

Vaughn slid on the floor onto his knees. He looked up at Sydney and felt his heart break. He was kneeling before her like a penitent sinner and looking up at her face he saw that she looked like an angel. Her face was shadowed but her head was bathed in beautiful sunlight that framed her like a halo. He noticed that her hair was much longer now and that it came down almost to the bottom of her ribcage. She was his redeemer. She was his angel and he had failed her. "I'm so sorry Syd. I'm so sorry!"

Sydney slid down onto her knees as well joining him in the shadows. "Are you sorry that you have a daughter?" she asked him with a tremble in her voice.

Vaughn held her face and rubbed her cheek gently with his thumb. The expression on his face was similar to one if someone had stabbed him. "No. Never. I swear! Sydney I feel like the luckiest man in the world because you gave a daughter."

He cupped her face and brushed away some tears. "I will just be forever sorry that you had to do it alone. That because of me you we forced to endure more pain and suffering. That because of me, Sloane and Sark were able to hurt you in a way you never dreamed possible. That they were able to hurt you so much that you can't even face daylight is something I will never forgive myself for. And I promise you I will hunt them down for you. I will get our daughter back and I will make them pay. I promise!" The last few words were said as tears started to pool in his eyes.

Sydney gave him a half smile as she felt a new wave of tears come crashing down. "I love you, Michael."

Vaughn gave her a lopsided smile as he felt his own tears start to fall. Suddenly a normal life seemed such a silly thing to worry about when he had Sydney's love. "I love you too Sydney."

He hesitated a moment before he gently lowered his face towards hers and caressed her lips with his own. 

__

I look inside myself and see my heart is black

I see my red door and it has been painted black

Sydney felt her heart break a little as kissed her. Feelings that she had tried to suppress for a year came bursting forth with a clarity that surprised her. She had thought that her heart was dead. Now suddenly she feared that her heart would burst. She broke the kiss and exhaled shakily.

She looked up at Michael and saw the same bleakness in his face, but buried deep within his eyes was the same fear and love and desire that she felt.

"Syd…" Michael said in an attempt to slow them down. But Sydney would have none of that. She raised her finger to his mouth to shush him and then stood up and grabbed his arm. He followed her up but when she started to lead him towards the bed he stopped her.

"Syd, we can't. We shouldn't. You've been through too much and--"

Sydney turned back to him determined to convince him that they had to. She had felt nothing but pain and emptiness for almost a year and she knew she had to feel again those feelings she'd felt when he'd just kissed her. She needed those feelings to stem the darkness within her. Like a lifeline being thrown to her in a deep sea storm, she knew that without him loving her she would be lost forever.

Vaughn saw the look of panic on her face as he tried to stop their course and it tugged at his heart. How could he ever deny her anything anymore?

"What can be healed has been, Vaughn. I promise. Except for here," she laid her hand over her heart. "Please don't leave me now. I need to be with you. I need to feel you. I need to know that you exist in a way that I can't deny it to myself. Please. Michael." The last few words escaped as a whisper and his will crumbled.

He paused for a split second as he thought of Irina's words… _a person's name is a sacred thing…a person's soul is revealed through their name._ He knew that that was all it ever took for him. When he heard his name from Sydney's mouth it tugged at his very soul. He responded by following her to the bed and lying down next to her. He covered her lips again in a soft kiss but it didn't take long for his body to demand more. She intertwined her legs with his and as their kiss broke he continued kissing the side of her face down to her neck. As he kissed her neck, his name escaped her lips and into his ear as a half moan and he lost his hold on reality.

Now it was just him and Sydney in a way that they had never been before. There had been blinding passion before but now there was desperation as well. It was like they were trying to permeate each other's very soul to make up for the holes missing in their own.

__

Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts

It's not easy facin' up when your whole world is black

Michael kissed her with such passion that for a brief, wonderful moment she did not feel the darkness within her. As he broke the kiss and moved his face in front of her she knew that she was looking into his soul. His eyes were smoky with desire but it was more than just desire for her body. His eyes were alive with a need for her to need him as much as he needed her. And she did. And she showed him. The time for hanging back, the time for restraint, the time for insecurity was gone. She knew that to deny him what little was left of her soul was to drive him into the same bleakness that encompassed her. So she caressed his cheek with her hand and hid nothing in her eyes. She was there for him to see, to know that without him right now she would die. He saw her love and he understood. When he wrapped his arms around her and threaded his hands though her hair she knew that he had accepted her offering with the same offering in kind. And that instead of feeling like she had given away the last of herself she felt like maybe she had regained a bit more of herself. 

She wrapped her arms around him as she rolled him over so she was on top. She straddled him so that he could feel her through the thin layers of clothes that they wore and he let out a small moan. 

She could see him trying to formulate the words to ask her if she was sure but she did not want him to break the world that they had created for themselves. With a fluid movement she removed her t-shirt and she saw that the words were banished from his mind.

He sat up and cupped her breasts with his hands and she moaned as he ran his thumb over her. Reality was suspended for her as well. No longer did she exist in a world where she had been captured and had her daughter ripped away from her. Now she was in a world where she felt nothing but desire and a burning heat within her for the man that was driving her wild. She couldn't retrace the frantic movements to remove the remaining pieces of clothing, all she knew was that she found herself naked, with all her truths visible for Michael to see. And it seemed that he soaked in the sight of her, regardless of her bruises and scars and stretch marks. He looked at her body in awe not because of her figure but because of its ability to produce miracles. He laid her down on the bed and reverently kissed her stomach in tribute.

Sydney felt the tears start to form in her eyes again as he worshiped her body. As he worked his way up to her face, leaving kisses and caresses in his wake she saw that his eyes were brimming with tears as well. They had gained so much only to lose it so quickly. She kissed him on the lips and as his tongue danced with her own she felt their tears mingle together and she could not take it anymore.

She rolled him over so that she sat on top of him once again and rubbed herself over his erection. He seemed to quickly forget any protest that he might have made as she took him inside her. Sydney forgot about anything but the heat inside her. Her body, so long denied screamed for more as she clung to the headrest and moved herself up and down to increase the friction. 

He sat up and threw her on her back unable to let her set the pace anymore. She relinquished control with a soft moan as he thrust into her and with it the tenuous thread still holding her back. She allowed him to fill her body and her mind and as her body shuttered in climax, for one brief moment her mind allowed her the comfort of knowing nothing of the pain and horror that had become a part of her. His climax came quickly after hers and he collapsed on her, their limbs and souls intertwined. 

__

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue

I could not foresee this thing happening to you

Vaughn looked at Sydney's sleeping form and the peaceful rhythm of her breathing and knew that she had found a temporary peace at last. Against all stereotypes, she had been the one to fall asleep exhausted after their lovemaking while he was left to watch over her and hold her. Her long hair was combed and splayed around her, framing her face. 

She is so beautiful, he thought. Then Vaughn thought about the package that was still in his vest pocket. He briefly debating sneaking out of bed to get it and waking her up right now to ask her but he decided against it. He had not seen her this peaceful since they had rescued her or for that matter since they had started seeing each other. He could wait. They would rescue their daughter and then he would ask her and they would live happily ever after. 

__

Is it enough for you to have her back? A voice echoed from his memory. Vaughn silently damned Sark. No Sark! No I need her whole again too! Vaughn trembled slightly as his rage threatened to burst forth. He forced himself to lay a gentle kiss down on her cheek to banish the anger and desperation that threatened to creep back into his mind. He wanted nothing to disturb this one perfect moment that they had.

He settled down next to her and she shifted sleepily so that he could use his entire body to hold her. He could feel her stretched out beside him, their legs entwined and he settled his face between her head and neck. 

He thought back to their lovemaking and knew that they had done again that which had made their daughter possible. But he realized that he was not upset. Maybe they had always known on some level that a child was a possibility and he wondered if that had not contributed to their passion somewhat. He thought that it was not a coincidence that such an intimate act could express their love for one another and give them immortality. That regardless of what happened, that it was because of their love that they would live forever in their daughter.

Vaughn settled into a calm sleep for the first time in almost a year. Their war was not yet won, but at least now he knew what he was fighting for. He was fighting for him and Sydney and for the future family that they would have.

__

If I look hard enough into the settin' sun

My love will laugh with me before the mornin' comes

Sydney sat at the bay window, dressed in her t-shirt and shorts and looked into the sun, setting on the horizon in the distance. She no longer felt the biting pain as she looked into its light but the conditioning was now hardwired into her brain. She had to force herself not to shield her eyes. It seemed ironic to her that for the first time that she was able to look at the sun since her daughter's birth, that she was looking at the setting sun.

She saw the people walking down on the street below and their motions looked pointless and empty. 

She looked back towards the bed and at Vaughn's sleeping form. He looked calm and peaceful and the worry lines that seemed to be a permanent part of his face when he was awake were gone. This was how she always pictured him. She looked at him and thought that this was the man that would have been her husband one day, had her life been completely different. 

He was so beautiful and serene, sleeping on the bed that she knew she could not inflict upon him the blackness inside of her. Because she realized that her emptiness had not yet vanished. Though he had taken her away from herself for one glorious moment, the blackness had returned. And it had been made all the more poignant because now she knew all that she had surrendered the day she was captured. She knew that though she was free now, her war was not yet won. She was still fighting for her daughter and her own soul.

She heard the front door slam and her mother and Will talking in the kitchen. She looked back quickly at Michael sleeping on the bed and then to the door but the contest was over before it began. There could be no real peace for her until she had Sloane's blood on her hands.

Sydney got up from the ledge of the window and walked to the door.

__

I wanna see it painted, painted black

Black as night, black as coal

I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky

I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black


	11. Chapter 10

Part 10. __

This song is Sympathy For The Devil by the Rolling Stones.

Please allow me to introduce myself  
I'm a man of wealth and taste  
I've been around for a long, long year  
Stole many a man's soul and faith 

Sark braced his jaw as the pretty doctor wrapped his hand in bandages. Her delicate fingers worked quickly but efficiently. Sloane hovered around the office glancing occasionally in Sark's direction. As the doctor finished tying off his hand she gave him a small smile. Sark glanced at her casually, but ignored her smile and hers soon faded when she didn't receive the response that she had hoped for.

"So tell me again, how you let her get away?" Sloane demanded, his voice snide.

Sark fought the urge to roll his eyes and just looked at his partner evenly. He took a deep breath to start his story over again but Sloane raised his hand to stop him.

"Never mind."

Sark's eyes followed Sloane as he continued his pacing around the den, stopping only to fiddle with his wedding band. Sark debated whether further words were necessary; he had to play his partner right otherwise everything would be lost. He made a small show of examining his bandaged hand and tried unsuccessfully to keep the grimace off of his face. 

Sloane looked at Sark's hand and turned to the doctor. "Will it heal?"

The doctor pursed her lips and paused a moment before answering. "If he were willing to come into the hospital I would be able to operate and place pins where they are needed but as it is, I can't be sure that there aren't loose fragments of bone in his hand."

"Going to the hospital is out of the question." Sark stated.

The doctor threw her hands up in frustration. "Then I can't make any guarantees. At the very least your hand will be terribly scarred but you may get some mobility back in it. At the worst, the loose fragments of bone will cause inflammation and you will lose your hand altogether. You choose."

Sark brushed her away with his good hand. "Thank-you for your help doctor."

The doctor picked up the supplies she had brought with her and exited the room angrily.

Sark turned to Sloane. "I don't think her loss is that big of a deal. We have the child and everything else is right on schedule."

Sloane stopped fiddling with his ring and glared at Sark. "I have come so far. I will not let anything mess this up for me."

Sark met his glare. "I will not let anything stop us either. You will have your wife back soon."

__

And I was 'round when Jesus Christ  
Had his moment of doubt and pain

Made damn sure that Pilate  
Washed his hands and sealed his fate 

Irina stood by the window in her bedroom and watched the people outside. Her imprisonment had been so long that she drank in the sight of the outside world. And she wasn't just thinking about her time in custody. She had always been an outsider from the real world.

Even before the day recruiters had come to her school, she had never seemed to quite fit in. She had been too smart for her own good. She had been the girl that intimidated the boys her age. But then again, the girls hadn't seemed to like her too much either. 

Her thoughts raced back in time to the day the recruiters indicated that they were interested in her. The KGB had offered her a golden opportunity and she had jumped at it. No more silent glares from the girls in her classes, no more snide remarks from the boys she outwitted.

She had found that she excelled in her training. She had always been bored with the subjects in school. The teachers went much too slow and the students complained still. At the Academy she was free to pursue all the extra subjects she could handle and it hadn't taken her long to attract the notice of her superiors. When she had been given her overseas assignment she had rejoiced. Finally, she had thought, she could test herself in the ultimate challenge. 

How little she had known.

Irina shook her head to banish her thoughts, but that was the one reprieve she was never allowed. She always thought. Only she fully understood the crimes she was guilty of. Lying, stealing, murder, treason…those were only the tip of the iceberg. She knew that each of those crimes could have been forgiven at the time. But she had chosen another path and she almost laughed at the irony. In her attempt to disentangle herself from the lies of her life because of her love for a man, she ended up betray that man in every way possible. She had sealed her fate the night that she had walked out of that warehouse and into Arvin's bed.

She shuttered slightly in revulsion as the memories flashed through her mind in punishment.

__

Pleased to meet you  
Hope you guess my name

She had been stumbling away from the warehouse, when he caught her off guard. The heel on her shoe had broken and she had been debating whether she would hurt more from walking barefoot in a gravel yard or from being caught when the police came. She could already hear the sirens in the distance and she knew she had to hurry when—

"Laura?"

Irina stumbled as she finally lost her balance. She looked around frantically only to find Arvin Sloane standing in the shadows, not far from her.

"Arvin?" she asked after she managed to find her voice. All the possible reasons why he could be here flashed though her mind but the most logical was that she was caught. She knew Arvin because he worked with Jack at the CIA. 

"What are you doing here Laura?"

But she also knew that Arvin was not an honorable man, she had scene many glimpses of that over the last several years.

She had eyed him coolly, regaining her balance. "I could ask you the same thing." 

He looked at her amused and then narrowed his eyes at her. "You could. But I don't think we should play games with each other tonight. I came here tonight to recover a manuscript that I think you might know something about. It was supposed to have been delivered to me. I found out that my contact though, gave it to the CIA instead. I traced Agent Vaughn here tonight. Which brings me to you. You….you are not who I though you were, are you?"

Irina managed to deliver him an insolent stare, while her mind was reeling. She didn't think she should lie to him. The only advantage that she could press was his involvement. "You are partly correct Arvin. It would seem that neither of us are whom we seemed to be. But I did not give Agent Vaughn the manuscript; he took it from me. I traced him here tonight to carry out other orders that I had been given. He burned the manuscript in front of my eyes before I could stop him."

Sloane's mouth tightened in anger and she knew that her life was in a precarious position. So she did the only thing she could think of. She approached him and threaded her arm through his.

She also knew without a doubt that she had a certain power over him, if she chose to use it. The last few years that she had she had known him, he had always smiled a little too brightly at her. All the careless caresses he had given her in his attempts at innocent contact. All the double meanings he had thrown at her in polite company. She had always rebuffed him without hesitation. The night he had cornered her in the kitchen with his wife and Jack in the next room she had managed to out maneuver him. But her refusals had never stopped him from trying again. He had told her that he admired her. She had told him that he repulsed her. He had laughed and said that that was only because she didn't really know him.

"If we are not playing games with each other now, then I think we should go somewhere and talk. I think that now that we really know each other, we could be mutually beneficial to each other."

She felt Sloane's stare on her as it traveled up and down her body before resting on her face. "Perhaps we could be." He replied.

__

But what's puzzling you  
Is the nature of my game 

Sark watched Arvin leave the office and so he was able to let his features relax for a moment. Even with the painkillers he was on, his whole arm throbbed. It seemed that after all his work he had managed to become marked nonetheless. His mouth tightened in anger at himself. He had fought his destiny for half a century so far. He would continue to do so.

He slid off the desk he had been sitting on so that the doctor could examine his hand. There was only one place he wanted to go. 

He left the office and walked down the hall. It was a small building really, but it served their purposes. He walked past a few more empty offices, past a turned off photocopier until he reached a large office that had obviously belonged to a manager or boss. The carpet was more lush, the furniture more expensive. 

He walked inside and was greeted by an armed guard looking perplexed as an infant cried in its carrier. The man looked relieved when Sark entered the room and Sark wasted no time in dismissing him. As the guard left in a hurry, Sark closed the door behind him. He then walked over to the crying baby.

She already seemed much larger than when he had last seen her and he was amazed. Though the last time he had seen her the doctor had just unhooked a series of tubes from her, but he shoved those memories aside. Sark used his good hand to touch her face. The contact seemed to sooth the infant.

"I gather you are hungry?" Sark asked out loud. The baby looked at him expectantly and Sark had to search around for some bottles that the doctor had prepared before leaving. He found them in the small refrigerator and he used the microwave in the corner to heat it up. The doctor had shown him how to test the temperature but with only one hand, Sark had to improvise. Had he been able to watch himself from a distance he would have been shocked to see the comic scene that he presented. But he turned back to the baby unaware.

Unable to pick her up Sark held the bottle up to her mouth and was thankful that the baby knew what to do. He watched her drink the milk and he couldn't help himself but stare at her in amazement. It wasn't until she had finished the bottle that he realized he would have to pick her up to burp her. The doctor had been quite adamant about that when she had given him the instructions.

Sark unlatched the safety belt and slid his right hand under the baby. She was so small that his palm easily cradled her head and upper back but he had to use his left hand to bring her up to his shoulder. He closed his eyes for a moment as the stars flashed before his eyes but he did not stop. He lifted her to his left shoulder and used his bad arm to support her body while his right hand rubbed her back.

Sark walked around the room while he waited for the gas to escape and he couldn't help but remember the night she was born.

__

I stuck around St. Petersberg  
When I saw it was a time for a change  
Killed the Czar and his ministers  
Anastasia screamed in vain 

Sloane led Irina to his car, parked some ways away. They didn't hurry, they didn't talk. Irina took off her heels and walked barefoot over the gravel and stones. Arvin walked next to her, supporting her arm and except for the blood on her dress and the bloody footprints she left behind, they almost looked like a couple, out for a stroll on a beautiful night.

He opened the door for her when they reached his car and she got in. He walked around to the other side, got in, put the car into drive and easily maneuvered onto the main road.

"So tell me your real name then Laura."

"What does it matter?" she had answered sharply.

"It matters. It always does."

Irina suspected that he wanted to know, because he knew that Jack would never know. At least until it was too late. "Irina Derevko." She answered plainly.

"You killed Vaughn?" 

Irina fought a moment of nausea as she remembered the blood spurting out of his throat. She didn't know how she formed the words that came out of her mouth. "I had my orders. My superiors are interested in pursuing Rambaldi's works so I gather that the orders I received will help that along."

Arvin nodded to himself. "Khasinau doesn't care about Rambaldi."

Irina tried to hide her shock at the casual mention of her boss. Instead she managed to eye Arvin coolly.

Frustrated that he could not get her off balanced he continued. "Alexander owed me a favor and it will be much easier to pursue Rambaldi without them on my back."

Her stomach turned as another wave of nausea hit her but she tried to look impressed. 

The silence settled in the car for a few minutes.

"I assume you have a vested interested in helping me maintain my cover then."

Arvin smiled coldly. "Jack will be devastated when he finds out."

Irina thought she would vomit on the fine leather seats. "My work here is not yet done. Regardless of what arrangements you have with my superiors, they will not be happy with you if you destroy their asset."

"No, you are correct. They would not be happy." Arvin said evenly and placed a hand on her thigh. "Rambaldi's works hold great power."

She hardly knew how she forced her face to remain calm but she did. She could not afford to have Arvin think that he was forcing her to do something she didn't want to do. She couldn't afford to give him that much power over her.

"If you joined me in my quest Irina, we could accomplish great things together."

"We could." She agreed cautiously and let the silence fall again before speaking. "We certainly could."

__

I rode a tank   
Held a general's rank  
When the Blitzkrieg raged  
And the bodies stank 

It had been raining that night three months ago, when he had gone to visit Sydney in her cell. Through the small window in the door he had seen her lying on her bed with her hands over her stomach, resting. When she had heard her cell door open, she had sat up and stared at him as he came in.

"Good evening Sydney." He remembered saying as he watched the fine planes of her face lift up in defiance. She never even graced him with a response.

He remembered her pride as he stood before her and offered her freedom. "I asked you long ago if you would join me. Things would not have worked out so if you had." He had watched her turn her face away. Angrily he had grabbed her chin and turned her face towards him. She had stood up so that she could almost look him straight in the eyes.

"I will give you this offer only once more. Come and join me. I am not so entangled in all this that I cannot find us a way out. We could accomplish great things together." He watched her pause in what he had hoped was consideration, but only to have her spit in his face.

He knew he had a temper. He had had years to fine-tune it but it still crept upon him with a blinding rage sometime. Not since the day that Irina had rescued him had he let his temper fly like it did that night. He had been rejected all his life by the people that were supposed to care about him and it drove him mad to think that the woman he was baring his heart to would do the same. Without thinking he struck out at her and sent her flying backwards. That she had hit her back against the metal bed and that the trauma had caused her water to break was incidental. It had not been his intention.

The doctor had come and delivered the child while Sark had stayed in the room and watched the results of his actions. The doctor had had some difficulties and there were only two things he really remembered after that. The first thing was the blood. There was so much blood everywhere and it always seemed to accompany his loss of temper. When he had slit his own mother's throat that fateful day seven years ago there had been a river of blood there as well. The second thing he remembered was being thrust an impossibly small baby into his hands. It had all happened so quickly that he hadn't even been able to tell the doctor that'd he never held a baby before. His inexperience hadn't seemed to matter though because she had been so small that she had fit in the palm of both his hands.

The baby finally let out a burp and Sark was brought out of his reverie. He laid the baby back down in her carrier and she cooed at him softly. In spite of his dark thoughts and entire upbringing Sark smiled back at the child.

"I suppose you actually do have a name." He said casually to the infant and she didn't disagree. "She kept calling you her Dawn…the light of her world…"Sark let his thoughts trail off as the baby started to smile and play with her hands. He stood mesmerized by her actions and briefly wondered if he could go along with Sloane's plan. 

He shook his head to banish his thoughts. Why not, he wondered as he tried to turn his thoughts back to reality. His own mother had allowed him to be locked away. He had chosen his path years ago and he was not about to start questioning it now.

__

I watched with glee  
While your kings and queens  
Fought for ten decades  
For the Gods they made 

He had been sitting at his old desk, immersed in a Latin textbook with Mozart's O Fortuna playing loudly in the background. He remembered closing his eyes and listening to the rise and fall of the notes as they built up only to die again. He hadn't even hear the door to his room open; he was so absorbed in the music. Not that he was expecting anyone. In fact he had forgotten how many years it had been since someone had come into his room.

It had taken the sound of a woman clearing her throat that forced him to spin around only to come face to face with a face that haunted his dreams. But he hadn't screamed. After the shock of the moment had worn off he had thrown his head back and laughed.

__

I shouted out  
"Who killed the Kennedys?"  
When after all  
It was you and me 

Irina sat in front of a mirror at a nameless motel while the sounds of the shower played in the background. She looked at herself and found that her face had changed over the last few years. Her eyes seemed to have gained a depth to them, but maybe it was only the lines that had appeared on her face. Not wrinkles, she thought vainly, they were only lines.

She heard the shower shut off and was surprised at the sudden feelings of repugnance that she felt. She would have thought that after four years, she would have been used to it by now. She hated it when he stepped out of the shower and dressed back up to reenter the normal world. She did it too and she hated herself for it as well. But unlike Arvin she didn't shower at the hotel, she always waited until she got home. She didn't want his presence to touch her after she had scrubbed every inch of her body.

Jack would complain lovingly sometimes that she made her skin raw with her steaming hot showers, but she simply smiled at him and kissed him in an attempt to block out the other kisses. Their lovemaking had become more fevered and sometimes bordered on violent but she needed the intensity to wash away Arvin's limp caresses.

Arvin exited the washroom and placed a hand on her shoulder as he walked by her. He smiled at her through the mirror. "I have to get going," he said a he slipped his trouser on. "I'm taking Emily out to dinner tonight."

Irina nodded as she turned around and watched him dress. Soon he was putting on his jacket and gathering his briefcase. "Goodbye sweetheart. I will trace those names you gave me tomorrow. Hopefully they will turn up a new artifact."

She smiled at him sweetly as he gave her a peck on her cheek. Here eyes followed him to the door and it was only when it shut behind him that she allowed her eyes to narrow in hatred. As her eyes bore a hole through the door she thought back to the orders she had received a few days ago and she smiled. She hoped that tracking down those names caused him great pain. She would be gone from this hell in a few days. 

She realized that she might be in for a worse hell back home but she doubted it. Nothing could compare to this. She dreaded what her leaving would do to Jack but she knew that Arvin would spare him this one secret of hers. In that he had no choice.

Perhaps it would ultimately be better for Jack if she left because then at least she could stop betraying him so intimately. And then she thought of his sweet smile and almost broke right then and there. But the truth of it was she knew she was a broken woman and had been for four years. She pushed the thoughts of Jack and Sydney out of her mind and started to dress.

__

Just as every cop is a criminal  
And all the sinners saints  
As heads is tails  
Just call me Lucifer  
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint 

Climbing down the stairs from his attic prison Sark's eyes went to the couch in the living room. He could still feel the smile on his face from when Irina had introduced herself. Now he could feel it getting bigger. Two bodies lay on the couch, bound and gagged, one alive and one very much dead. His grandmother's throat lay open, her head back at an unnatural angle and blood covered the old apron that she always wore.

He remembered that Irina had said something to him, apologizing for the mess but he had just laughed. He had approached his mother and seen her quiver and fight against her bonds. He went up to the large man cleaning his knife on the curtains and stood before him. The man stopped cleaning, obviously afraid to have offended him but Sark merely held out his hand for the knife. The large man gave it up freely and Sark returned back to his mother. Using one careful finger he pulled the gag away from her mouth.

"Figlio mio! Che fai?" The shrill words left his mother's mouth.

(My son! What are you doing?)

Sark placed his finger over her mouth but it was the contact more than the gesture that stopped her words. "Non sono il tuo figlio. Non ero mai tuo figlio." (I am not your son. I was never your son)

His mother started to cry uncontrollable and he raised the knife to her throat.

"Padre Nostro, che sei nei cieli, sia santificato il tuo Nome…" she started whispering in panic. (Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…)

Sark smiled coldly as the words froze in her throat when he pressed the knife to her skin. A thin red line of blood appeared.

"You locked me in a room for thirty years because your mother thought I was the devil…." He said switching to English, unwilling to converse anymore with his mother, in her native tongue. "You denied me a life because of some absurd prophecy. You watched me beg you for years to be let free. You denied me a name, you denied me any mercy for acts I haven't even committed yet. Do you know want to beg mercy from me?"

His mother looked at him with horror. "You are the devil. You are right, you are no son of mine! You are the son of that barbarian who raped me. Mamma was right….you will destroy the world—"

Her words were cut short as he felt the anger within him snap. Before he could even think about it, he had plunged the knife in her delicate throat and ripped it across with a savagery he hadn't even known he had possessed. 

After the blood stopped spurting everywhere he bent forward and cleaned the knife on his mother's skirt.

He turned back to Irina and saw that she watched him calmly.

__

Let me please introduce myself  
I'm a man of wealth and taste  
And I laid traps for troubadors  
Who get killed before they reached Bombay 

Irina was forced out of her reverie when the door to the apartment was slammed shut. She winced as the sound of bags dropping on the floor broke the quiet stillness of the air. She put her hand up to her face to rub her eyes and was shocked to feel fresh tears on her face. She wiped them away angrily before exiting the room.

She had no chance to take more than a pace out of her room before she was besieged by Will.

"I think I found them!" he practically shouted.

"Found who? What are you talking about Tippin?" Irina asked tiredly. She was emotionally and physically exhausted and her memories had not helped either.

"Sark and Sloane. I think I found them."

They were interrupted as Sydney exited her room and came walking into the living room and kitchen area. She stumbled over some of the bags that Will had dropped in his excitement and while straightening them she pulled out a large black t-shirt. She held it up and turned it around for her mother to see. Will saw the amused expression on Sydney's face.

"What's so funny?"

Irina shook her head. "It says Forza Juventus".

"Yeah, so?" Will asked confused.

Sydney smiled at him. "I didn't know you were a soccer fan. Juventus is a soccer team, here in Italy. More specifically they're from a northern province." Will continued to look confused so Sydney was forced to continue. "Italians are very particular about their soccer teams. It's practically the second question they will ask you after meeting you. We'd be more inconspicuous wandering down a back alley of LA wearing gang colors."

Will's face colored as Sydney patted him on the shoulder. 

Irina shook her head and then turned back to Will. "You were saying?"

"Oh, right! Well I was thinking while I was out and I remembered that Vaughn had told me about Sloane's last transmission that you two saw before leaving the bunker. Sloane wanted them to deliver a particle accelerator that some university had just made. Well I don't know anything about particle accelerators but I remember my sister talking about one a few years ago. Some professor that she wanted to go work for was working on one or something…anyway she was telling me how it was located underground in these huge, big long tunnels…Well my point is that what Sloane said doesn't make any sense. How could they deliver miles of tubing? He'd have to set it up and—"

"Maybe he wasn't interested in the tubing. Maybe he was only interested in the detectors or the electromagents." Irina interrupted.

"That's what I was thinking! So I went to an Internet café and I found out that European Center for Nuclear Research is the only center of it's kind left in Europe. And they have a particle accelerator there. I was thinking that it makes sense for them to use as much existing equipment as they can and then just modify what they need to get this 'new' accelerator up and working."

Sydney stared at Will, her eyes bright. "So we can find them…" she whispered.

"So we can find them," answered Will. "The center is on the French-Swiss border, just west of Geneva"

"It shouldn't take us too long to get there." Sydney said to herself.

Irina flashed her daughter a look. "This is not going to be easy Sydney. We don't really have the resources or the people to be able to stop them—"

Sydney's eyes flashed with anger. "I am not going to let anyone stop me from finding them. This is our chance. We have to hit them now, before they accomplish whatever the hell it is that they're trying to do!"

Irina turned to Will. "Go get Vaughn up. We need to discuss this now." Will looked at Sydney and back to Irina. He turned away quickly and went to do as he had been told. He knew better than to get caught between mother and daughter.

__

So if you meet me  
Have some courtesy  
Have some sympathy, and some taste  
Use all your well-learned politesse  
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, 

Sark snapped out of his reverie and turned away from the baby. He was about to leave, when he heard the beginnings of a cry and it tugged at his very core. This baby had accepted him, without pretense and regardless of his crimes and affiliations and Sark found that it was a feeling that was foreign to him. He turned back to the infant and saw a small smile cross her face.

He moved back towards the baby carrier and pulled a small cylinder out from the inside pocket of his jacket. The cylinder was actually a tube made of a shiny silver material, tapered at one end with nine tiny holes down the length of it. Sark brought the tapered end up to his mouth and using his right hand to cover the bottom holes, he brought the fingers of his left hand up to the top.

For a brief moment Sark was worried that the pain in his hand would block out his ability to remember the notes but such was not the case. It seamed that some things were permanently etched in his soul.

He pushed the searing pain from his hand out of his mind and commanded his fingers to play. A solemn note filled the air and seemed to reverberate around the room, calling all the objects to attention. The baby, whose eyes could not focus on an object more than a foot away from her, used the note to find him.

After a second or eternity a melody started to flow from the instrument. It started off slowly as if it needed to gather up its energy as it floated around the room. As it flowed along, it picked up in tempo forcing the energy that it had gathered up to increase. Sark was not immune to its effects either as he felt its soothing powers and an influx of energy. With his heightened senses he could almost feel every object in the room, as if it were a part of him. 

As the song reached its crescendo Sark almost threw his head back in triumph as the energy surged within him. Dawn, unable to understand what was happening to her, started to cry loudly.

As the flow of energy started to ebb, Sark continued to play. This time the music was calming, like it was trying to put all the energy back into its original state. Dawn's crying tapered off until as his last note was played, he ended in complete silence. The baby was sleeping now and as he placed the instrument back into his pocket, he found that he could move his injured hand without intense pain. He shook his head. He hadn't done it for himself and he found it disconcerting that he should reap the benefits. He had played regardless of his pain so that he could offer this baby the only protection he had. It was the only thing he could do.

Sark turned without another glance at the child and left the room to find the guard to baby-sit her. He still had too much to do.

__

Pleased to meet you  
Hope you guessed my name, um yeah  
But what's puzzling you  
Is the nature of my game. 


	12. Chapter 11

A/N: I don't want anyone to think that I'm ignoring their reviews, I read all of them and they really make my day. As for all the requests to make it a happy ending, well, you'll just have to wait and see. I have the story all planned out and I think it's a happy ending but it probably won't be what you expect. I can't wash away all the hurt and tragedy that has happened to the characters but they will find some resolution. And that's all I can say without giving it all away. I hope everyone is still along with me for the ride.

And so it continues…

Part 11. __

This song is Undone by the Guess Who. (Time for a little Canadian content ;) )

She's come undone

She didn't know what she was headed for

And when I found what she was headed for

It was too late

Vaughn used a small laser to cut through the glass window. A moment later he helped Sydney through the hole he had created, before following her through. As he hopped through the window he barely had time to gather his bearings before Sydney was opening the door. 

Vaughn managed to note that they were obviously in a professor's office, there was a desk and a chair, and everywhere there were textbooks or journal articles. Sydney didn't waste any time looking around though. Vaughn cursed silently under his breath as he trailed after her.

The hallway was empty but she was already halfway down it before he had his head out the door. He watched her move quickly but silently, placing each foot down and then rolling it around so that she could stop in mid-pace, should the floor creak.

__

You should give that to her the very next time you see her…The words came unbidden into his head and Vaughn rolled his eyes. This thought had been going through his head since he had gotten up two days ago. "When?" he wanted to scream at himself as he hurried down the hall, double-checking each room and office that he passed before proceeding. But Jack's voice in his head wasn't perturbed by his current activities. _You should give that to her the very next time you see her..._

Vaughn stopped at the end of the hall and leaned against the wall. Sydney had been kind enough to wait for him there, but she didn't give him any time to catch his breath before proceeding into the stairwell. Subconsciously he put his hand up to his chest pocket where he kept the ring.

__

You should give that to her the very next time you see her...

'When?!' Vaughn mentally screamed inside his head. 'When was I suppose to give it to her?' he demanded from himself. He was tired of the voices battling in his head and he just wished that they would come to some kind of resolution so that he could stop listening to them. 'Should I have given it to her when the first time that I see her in almost a year, she tells me that Sloane kidnapped our daughter? A daughter that I didn't even know existed? Or maybe I should have woken her up from the only peace that she knows to ask her? Or should I have gotten down on one knee after Will woke me up and I went into the living room to find mother and daughter screaming at one another!'

Vaughn almost laughed as he pictured the would-be scene.

__

"We have to go now! Time is the only advantage that we have and we've got to use it!"

"Sydney we don't even know for sure if they are there! Maybe Sloane wants something completely different and him asking for a particle accelerator was only to throw the US off track! Or maybe it's an even better trap to get Vaughn. Have you thought of that? Maybe they think that holding you hostage wouldn't have provided him enough incentive; you're a big girl, you can take care of yourself. But now, if they hold his daughter hostage…the stakes are suddenly a lot higher."

"Well he doesn't have to go. He can stay here and hide under the couch for all I care. I'm going!"

"Um excuse me Irina, Syd. I realize now is a bad time but honey before you call me a coward and your mom threatens to ground you again, I was just wondering if you would like to spend the rest of your life with me. We could have a nice, small wedding, I could buy you a small house with a picket fence and we could have a nice, normal life together. Well at least until you run off to find our daughter and do something horrible to the man who stole her from you. What do you say?"

Vaughn shook his head to clear the insanity from his head. The voice was temporarily subdued and he was able to follow Sydney down the staircase, into the basement.

__

She's come undone

She found a mountain that was far too high

And when she found out she couldn't fly

It was too late

Dust was kicked up a little as he opened the door at the bottom of the stairs. He saw Sydney far up ahead in the tunnel before him and he cursed under his breath again. _Was she determined to get herself killed?_ He though madly. He tried to move quickly to catch up with her.

"Sydney!" he shouted in a whispered tone. The tunnel helped carry his voice to her and he cringed as he heard his shout echoed through the hall. She stopped as she heard her name. She even turned back to look at him briefly. But then she turned back and continued hurrying down the tunnel.

__

You should give that to her the very next time you see her...The voice was back and Vaughn felt like beating his head in frustration.

"When?" he demanded from the voice in his head. "Should I have asked her in the van, on the crazy drive up here?" He remembered how she had spent hours staring out the window. He had watched her every few seconds through the rearview mirror as he drove. Irina had been making one phone call after another, trying to secure them equipment and papers. When they had stopped for gas, Will had gone to buy a map and learned first hand that some Italians were a little touchy about their soccer teams. It seamed that he was developing a bit of a stubborn streak because he had donned one of the t-shirts that he had purchased at the market. His lack of Italian hadn't helped matters. The shopkeeper had thought he was making fun of him. Irina had had to go in and rescue Will.

He had taken the opportunity to get out of the driver seat and go sit with her in the back seat. 

"Syd?" he had said quietly but she had been lost in her thoughts. He had reached out and held her hand before she finally turned to him.

"We need to go faster," was all she said.

Should he have delayed their drive by asking her then?

He remembered how she had screamed at her mother when Irina had told him to stop at a restaurant for dinner. Should he have asked her then, between Irina's angry explanations about needing to meet her contact and Sydney's demands that time was more crucial than equipment? Or perhaps he should have asked her after Irina had lost her temper and yelled back that time would be irrelevant if they got arrested crossing the borders.

He shook his head to quiet his thoughts as he saw Sydney continuing to move down the tunnel. He noticed that down the side of the tunnel was a large tube and he wondered if this was part of the particle accelerator. He had no time to ponder though as he forced his feet to move quicker to keep Sydney from disappearing from his view.

He quietly prayed that Will and Irina were making out ok, coming in from the south entrance.

__

She's come undone

She wanted truth but all she got was lies

Came the time to realize

And it was too late

Vaughn burst open the door that he had seen Sydney disappear into moments before, only to find himself in a small laboratory. The room wasn't much bigger than his kitchen back at home. It had a shelf and cabinet with some chemicals in it and a small table near the center of the room. He looked around quickly and saw Sydney standing in front of a window with her rifle unslung. 

There was a look of abject horror on her face. 

Vaughn quickly raced to the window and saw that it overlooked another laboratory, only this one was ten times larger. He saw maybe half a dozen people scurrying around, working on various pieces of equipment, but his eyes quickly fell on what had caught Sydney's attention. And then he felt his world shatter as well.

A small baby was lying limp on a table with Sark and Sloane standing around next to it. Vaughn watched with horror as Sark drew some blood from her while Sloane watched. He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach and it was only through shear force of will that he was able to look around the window and find a small switch. He flicked it on and almost flinched as voices filled the room.

"We need at least three cc's of blood." Sloane said to Sark, who nodded.

Vaughn watched the tiny syringe in Sark's hand suddenly filled with blood from his daughter's arm and all at once he felt an incredible need to do violence to the men who had harmed her. 

Another man came to take the syringe away and bring it to a machine in the corner. 

By some unseen connection with Sydney he managed to catch her fist in mid-air as she aimed it to the window. She turned to him, her face twisted with fury.

"Let me go." She spoke through clenched teeth.

Vaughn stared at her, her fist still clenched in his hand. The look in her eyes made his blood run cold but he held on tight. Intuitively, he knew that there was more at stake then her putting her fist through the window. They stayed locked in their own battle until the scene below them caught their attention.

"I don't think it's working Mr. Sloane." The voice came through the intercom.

__

She's come undone

She didn't know what she was headed for

And when I found what she was headed for

Mama, it was too late

With Vaughn still gripping her fist, they watched transfixed as Sloane and Sark jumped up and moved towards the equipment that the man had brought the blood sample to. The voices were becoming heated and Sloane slammed his fist into the side of the equipment.

"We need his blood! I knew this wouldn't work." Sloane hissed.

Sark moved calmly around the equipment. "There are two problems here, Sir. The first is that the power source is not connected properly, we're not getting any reading from the accelerator. The second problem does seem to be from her blood. Some of the code is matching up but—"

Vaughn stopped listening as Sydney dropped her hands to her side, her face unreadable to him. He was forced to let go of the hand that he held and without thinking, his eyes were drawn back to his daughter who lay pale and unmoving on the laboratory table. 

That was his daughter…He was so intent on the sight of the child that he didn't see Sydney look around the room. He didn't see the expression on her face. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her move away from the window, towards an open cabinet and take something out. Her actions broke the trance that he had been in and allowed him to concentrate on their present situation.

"What are you doing?" he asked but she didn't respond. He moved away from the window and towards her. "Sydney?"

She didn't respond to him.

With her back towards him, he couldn't see what she was doing. He moved closer and was extending his arm to touch the back of her shoulder when she spun around. 

He had been ready for a fight since the moment they left Rome two days ago. The sight of his daughter at the mercy of Sark and Sloane made his blood boil for vengeance. However, the attack he was prepared from was not from Sydney. A solid kick landed on his stomach and as he flew to the ground, he felt the wind getting knocked out of him.

"Syd—"

He didn't get the chance to finish her name before he felt a cloth cover his nose and mouth. _You should have given it to her the first time that you saw her…_was the last thought that echoed through his head before his world faded to black.

__

It's too late

She's gone too far

She's lost herself

She's come undone.


	13. Chapter 12

Ok…here we go guys. Just to give everyone an idea we're probably 2/3 of the way through the story. I know it's long…I just hope everyone is still with me. I've had some questions for clarification but all I want to say about the last chapter is that Sydney is not bad. She just loves her daughter.

I want to give a huge thank-you to Lia for reading this over for me! Ok, last note. I've only heard Nirvana's cover of this song, but I figured that since it was remade from an older folk song it still fits in the genre of music that I want to use. I didn't want to use it because of any religious reference, I used it because to quote a reviewer from the Nirvana album, "it's a song of anti-redemption".

Well, enough babbling on my part. Here it is! And please, any comments are welcome!

****

Part 12. 

__

This song is Jesus Don't Want me For a Sunbeam, by the Vaselines (covered by Nirvana)

She put her foot down quickly one in front of the other, swinging her rifle steady as she looked through the open door. It was empty. So far, the entire building seemed to be empty. For a moment she was worried that they were chasing a false lead. Maybe Sloane and Sark hadn't come here to Switzerland. She shook her head to banish her worries. She couldn't start doubting herself now.

She heard faint footsteps and she remembered that someone was behind her. She looked back and saw Vaughn following her down the hallway, his face anxious. She felt a momentary stab of guilt for pushing him away these last few days, especially after their night together in Rome. But it was that very night that had convinced her that she had no choice at all but to do that. The very happiness that she had felt when they were together only served to underscore how very much had been taken away from her. And how very big the hole in her soul truly was.

She tried to focus on her patrol through the empty hallways but her thoughts were still scattered. She thought back to the brief moment in the car yesterday, when he had come to sit next to her while they were pulled over to get gas. She remembered that she had been staring out the window and she wondered for a moment, if he had thought that that meant she was better. She didn't have the heart to tell him that the only reason she could stand to look at the sun again was because it had ceased to have any meaning for her. Her world was black now, regardless if she looked to the sun or not.

Back in the car, he had held her hand in a reassuring manner but really it had made her blood run cold. She realized now that she desperately needed to be whole again but she knew, intuitively, that the only way that was possible was for her to get her daughter back. As much as she wanted him to, he couldn't fill that hole for her. So she had told him to hurry. She hoped that he understood why. It was for her sake as well as their daughter's.

She brushed aside her thoughts. She had to maintain her focus now. There was only one thing that she could afford to think about. She was within reach of her daughter. She just knew it.

"Sydney!" she heard a voice calling and it echoed down the tunnel. She inwardly winced at the noise and she turned to look back. She did not look back because her name was called, that hadn't even registered in her mind. She saw Vaughn moving quickly trying to catch up to her, but she turned back and kept moving. She couldn't wait for him. She just had the horrible feeling that she was running out of time.

__

Jesus, don't want me for a sunbeam

Sunbeams are never made like me

She threw open the door at the end of the hall and scanned the room quickly. It looked like a small lab with all the usual assortment of equipment and chemicals normally found in a lab.

She took in the open chemical cabinet in the corner, the small table in the centre of the room and as her eyes wandered around the room she saw an observation window to her left. She felt herself drawn to the window like a magnet.

The window overlooked another lab, but this one was huge. It had many workstations and it was filled with equipment. She noticed that the glass had a slight silver tinge to it and she guessed that it was mirrored so that the occupants below could not see her. Which was a very good thing because the occupants below were the very people she was looking for.

She felt herself give a sharp intake of breath. On a table near the centre of the lab lay her little baby. She stared in silenced horror, as her daughter lay limp and pale on a cold steel table, at the mercy of Sloane and Sark.

She was so overwhelmed by the sight in front of her that she didn't even notice as she laid her rifle against the wall because she never took her eyes off of her child. She heard the door swing open but she knew it was only Vaughn. Whether or not she would have reacted if she wasn't sure, she didn't know.

All she knew was that her daughter looked so much bigger than the last time she had seen her. But then again, when she had been born, she had been so small that she almost fit in the palms of her two hands. She looked at her daughter's pale face and her heart constricted.

Then Sark approached her daughter with Sloane not far behind. She watched in horror as Sark filled his syringe full of her daughter's blood and then she felt a rage like nothing she'd ever felt before. That anybody would dare to hurt her defenseless baby was something she could not comprehend. She trembled slightly as the rage coursed through her body.

She saw a man come to take the syringe away from Sark and she felt something within herself snap. Without thought or care she curled her fist up into a ball so tight that her nails dug into her palm. The pain didn't stop her though, it only fueled her anger. Almost on instinct she swung her arm back and then charged it forward with all her might. Her only goal: to shatter the glass between her and her daughter's tormentors.

Her fist was stopped in mid-air by the man standing next to her. She turned to him with her face contorted in anger. "Let me go," she demanded through clenched teeth.

She saw him staring in her eyes, unwilling to look away though she knew that the look on her face would stop anyone else's blood cold. She felt nothing as she stared at his face except a cold, burning fury that he was stopping her from being with her daughter. His eyes seemed to be demanding something from her but she had nothing to give him. She was empty save for the rage within her.

A voice from the intercom shattered their battle as it spoke. "I don't think it's working Mr. Sloane."

She turned back to the window transfixed as she watched Sloane and Sark move towards the man in the far corner standing next to the machine that he had placed the blood sample in. She watched with a small surge of satisfaction as Sloane slammed his fist into the side of the machine. "We need his blood! I knew this wouldn't work." She heard him cry in frustration.

Then she watched as Sark moved around the equipment. "There are two problems here, Sir. The first is that the power source is not connected properly, we're not getting any reading from the accelerator. The second problem does seem to be from her blood. Some of the code is matching up but—"

She stopped listening as her eyes traveled across the lab to the small baby lying unconscious on the table. Everything had been for nothing. They had destroyed her life, they had taken her daughter away from her, and everyone who had died, had all been for naught. The men who had mastermind the death and suffering of millions couldn't even get their plan to work. She thought that for a moment she should have felt vindicated but she didn't. She knew she didn't want them to succeed, but she knew that she wanted them to feel the same pain that she did. She wanted them to suffer.

She looked around the laboratory again, not consciously thinking of a plan but one was forming anyway. She saw the open cabinet and the various chemicals inside. A small bottle of halothane caught her attention as she moved towards the cabinet. She was unable to process anything rationally but incoherent thoughts flew through her mind in a jumble. For a little vial of blood they had destroyed her life and taken her daughter from her. But they needed _his_ blood. All this pain that she had suffered through had been only so that they could get his blood. Though all this had been told to her that night in the apartment in Rome, it was something quite different for her to see it played out in front of her.

She reached for a handful of gauze with her left hand and the bottle of halothane with her right. She did not consciously think of the end results that she was aiming for, she only thought that the halothane was necessary because she was no longer as strong as she used to be. That's why her daughter was lying on the table on the other side of the mirror, away from her. She had allowed her to be taken away because she had lacked the strength to stop them. She took a deep breath, unscrewed the cap and drenched the gauze with the drug.

"What are you doing?" she heard his voice behind him.

She continued pouring.

"Sydney?"

For a moment she wondered who he was talking to and then her mother's words ran randomly through her mind… _a person's name is a sacred thing…a person's soul is revealed through their name._

Did she have a soul anymore, she wondered absently. Her name coming from his lips no longer had the power to make her weak in her knees, but she was sure that it once did. Was that because he had changed from the person she loved, or was it because she had?

Though her strength was not what it used to be, her aptitude at spatial relations had not diminished. She spun around and timed her kick perfectly so that it knocked him back and to the floor. It was enough to wind him she saw and she used the opportunity to climb over him. 

"Syd—"

She held the gauze tight over his mouth and nose, blocking off any further sound from his voice. He struggled for a few moments but between the surprise and his fall to the ground he was helpless. Within a few minutes his head fell limp into her hands and she felt only emptiness.

She stared at his peaceful face for a moment as something tugged at her memory but she pushed it aside. She involuntarily laid her left hand on his cheek, perhaps as a single last attempt to see if the darkness within her could be quieted simply by his touch. And though her heart gave a wretched tug within her chest, it was nothing compared to the shattering it underwent when she thought of her daughter, lying helpless on the table.

She forced herself up and back to the cabinet where she had seen syringes and alcohol and grabbed a syringe. She quickly swabbed the inside of his arm and used the syringe to puncture his skin. She had a moment of déjà vu as she saw the bright red blood collect in the vial but she pushed that aside as well. When the vial was full she carefully removed the syringe and applied a small bandage that she had also found and got up.

She looked around the lab one last time to see if there was more to her plan and she spotted a black notebook in the corner. Within a few strides she had it in her hands and was flipping through it. She recognized the neat, meticulous handwriting from a lifetime ago. She had seen it back when she had worked at SD-6 for the very devil himself. The writing belonged to Sloane's partner, Sark.

She looked at the drawings and the calculations. Some were encoded but he had hidden the cipher within the work and it was a simple one at that. It didn't take her more than a few minutes to get a basic understanding of what they were trying to do. And her blood chilled even further. 

Were they trying to find a cure for Emily's cancer? Her name kept appearing within the notes but something didn't make any sense. She tucked the lab book under her arm and turned towards the door. She looked one last time at the unconscious man on the floor and she felt her heart twist a little more. But the voices through the intercom still echoed around the room and they forced her attention back to the window.

"Inject her with the virus anyway. Maybe the results will be close enough." Sloane demanded to an unnamed man in a while lab coat. The unnamed man moved towards a bench and she had to move slightly so that she could see where he went through the observation window. And then she saw a small red ball suspended in air between a metal circle and she knew what they meant to do.

Her rage resurfaced ten-fold and filled her emptiness like a tidal wave. She saw what they meant to do but she would be damned if she would let them do it.

__

Jesus, don't want me for a sunbeam

Sunbeams are never made like me

Her movements did not register completely in her conscious mind but subconsciously she was putting all the pieces together. She found herself running through a hallway and down another set of stairs. She berated herself for leaving her rifle behind but it was too late now. She would have to make do with what she found.

She heard a man coming up another landing of the stairs and she quietly removed the knife from her pocket. Though her strength was diminished her instincts and reflexes were not. As he made her way down to the main laboratory she left a trail of bloody corpses behind. Apparently her rage and desperation easily made up for what she lacked in martial arts practice.

She found a circuit panel just inside the laboratory and it didn't take her long to remove the lights from shining down. She plunged the lab into darkness with a small smile. They were on even footing now.

The chaos that ensued allowed her to remove a few more men from the equation and though she heard Sark and Sloane screaming orders in the background she couldn't locate them without giving herself away. At least the clutter of equipment gave lots of cover as she sneaked around the lab. Eventually she made her way to the far side of the room where she gained access to the equipment that the men had brought her daughter's blood to. 

She placed the vial of blood that she had taken with her into the machine and flipped open the lab book. It looked like they were only looking for a component within the blood. It looked like it was a cofactor used in the antibody for the virus but she wasn't sure. But she didn't waste any time in trying to figure it out. Though this step was the crucial one for her enemies, for her it was simply the first step in revenge. While the machine whirled and beeped and separated the components from the blood she looked back over the notebook. Her next step was the power source.

It didn't take her long to maneuver around the darkened lab but she did have a near encounter with one of the large thugs. Luckily between the knife she still had and the cabinet that had been between them she had managed to outmaneuver him and add him to her body count. She didn't even blink as the blood spattered onto her clothing.

The power source she discovered was not for the particle accelerator but rather its output seemed to lead to an egg-shaped container. And then it hit her. She had seen this container before…in India…with her mother and her father. She ran to the egg shaped container and tried to open it. It was closed tight but that wasn't why she had to stop trying to open it. Touching the container had frozen her hands. 

Her mind was whirling as she rubbed her hands together to try and warm them up. And then she stopped. She realized that the pain in her hands went well with the rage in her heart. But she was puzzled because she didn't remember the container being so cold when she had seen the flower emerge from it. She looked around for an opening mechanism and finally found it on the side.

With a quite swish the container opened and suddenly all the pieces clicked into place. She didn't think it was possible to be anymore shocked. She had really thought that she was beyond all feeling anymore. But inside the container, curled upon herself lay Emily; very pale, very cold and very dead. 

And then she realized that this wasn't just a quest for world domination for Sloane. He didn't want millions of dollars. His desire wasn't to be the most powerful man in history. His quest was to alter the very fundamentals of nature. He was trying to bring Emily back to life.

She heard the noise of someone approaching her from the other side of the workstation, and without hesitation she grabbed a large jar off of a nearby lab bench and brought it up quickly over her head. She could almost feel them coming around towards her. 

As Sark came around the other side she happened to glance up at his blue eyes and she knew that she had surprised him. She didn't hesitate to bring the jar crashing down on his head, she only regretted the noise of the shattering glass.

She saw Sark lying unconscious on the floor and she knew that she had to work quickly. The serum that she had put in the machine had finished whatever it was doing and it had started flashing. It appeared that whatever component it had separated from Vaughn's blood was part of the energy source. She looked over the connections between the power source and the Rambaldi egg shaped container. They had made a few mistakes in their assembly. She saw it plain as day. But she didn't want to fix it completely. No, in fact she wanted to rewire it slightly.

She grabbed a small remote that she saw on the workbench and hunched over the power source. She made sure to work quickly.

__

Jesus, don't want me for a sunbeam

Sunbeams are never made like me

"Sydney!" Sloane cried out in surprise. She jumped back slightly from the power source that she had been working on, surprised by his sudden appearance, but she had the satisfaction of seeing him look about in worry. She didn't know if it was her location or the look in her eyes that made him tremble slightly, but regardless of the cause a small smile crept over her face.

Sloane eyed her warily as she moved away from the power source, holding something small in her hand. He couldn't tell what it was and that made him nervous. He was at the pinnacle of over thirty years work and he could almost taste the sweet flavor of success. His eyes followed her as she moved around him and her eyes never left his.

"What are you doing Sydney?" Sloane asked trying to keep his nervousness from showing in his voice.

She only looked back at him coldly. "I could ask you the same thing."

Sloane looked about and saw the opened egg-shaped container. The panic was clearly visible on his face and he couldn't stop the words from rushing out of his mouth. "I just want to be with Emily. Forever. I love her and I want to be with her. I want a little bit of immortality. Is that so bad? Wouldn't you like that as well." She was surprised to see him almost begging her to help him.

"I already have it." Sydney responded coldly with no act on her part necessary.

She just stared back at him, her eyes trying to bore through him so that she could catch a glimpse of understanding for the man who had caused her so much pain. But she only saw an old man looking back at her and for a moment she couldn't understand how one man could have brought about such misery. He was only one man.

"I'm surprised at you Sydney." Sloane began to speak as he saw her move towards the oval container. He tried to move about innocently but she had already guessed where his true weakness lay.

She didn't answer him and he trembled again. She acted like what he said was of no consequence to her. It really wasn't.

"Why are you doing this? You had the opportunity to grab your daughter and run a while ago and yet you leave her lying on the table over there? Maybe we did the proper thing in taking her away from you if that's the kind of mother you would be."

She didn't even glance at the table. She had seen her daughter lying there from the window in the lab overlooking this one and it was then that she had understood a very important fact. "I think you should know that after this, I will never speak to you again. But there is something that I need to make very clear to you. The thing that I want more than anything else is to see my daughter safe. But she can never be safe while you are still breathing. You locked me up, you wore me down, I couldn't fight you one on one now. But you could never take away my mind. And I have out-thought you now. You had the pieces assembled all wrong. But I fixed them. I put them all together, well at least all the pieces that you had. Now I want you to see."

Sloane shouted to her as she moved towards the opened oval container. He ran to her to stop her and threw himself over the container, trying to protect Emily's body from whatever she had been planning. She smiled a small smile as she flicked the switch on the remote that she carried. The machine started to buzz and Sloane looked around in horror.

"What have you done?" he cried as the buzzing intensified.

She stood mesmerized by the sound and strange light emanating from the oval that she didn't see Sloane reach out his hand and suddenly grasp her arm. She had no chance to pull back or stop her fall into the container as well.

"Sydney!" cried out a voice behind her, but she never saw Sark stand back up again. All she saw was a blinding light and the horrible buzzing filled her ears until it was replaced by a beautiful melody. It never made any sense to her but it didn't have to. She had succeeded in her quest.

__

Don't expect me to cry, 

For all the reasons you had to die

"Sydney!" Vaughn cried from his view at the observation window. All he saw was a lab bathed in darkness except for a small light coming from a corner of the room. From the glow of the light he could see Sloane lying overtop of something but the glow was becoming a part of him as well. He was braced against the window, unable to leave the view of the drama below but he still was not prepared for the sight of Sloane grabbing Sydney by the arm and pulling him towards her. Or the sight of her being enveloped by the glowing light as well. He never noticed Sark standing behind her and he didn't understand the significance of the music he heard over the intercom or where it was coming from. Years later the tune would come back to haunt him, but at the time he hardly even realized it.

The explosion that followed shattered the window he was leaning against but the force of it threw him back into the room.

***

"Sydney!" Irina cried out from her view at the opposite end of the laboratory. In the back of her mind she could hear her cry being echoed by Tippin, who up until a moment ago had been by her side. Now she could spare no thought to anything but what she was seeing. Even amidst all the equipment and clutter she had a direct view of the scene. 

She had seen Sydney talking with Sloane. She had seen her daughter approach the Rambaldi device, which she had instantly recognized. She had seen Sloane throw himself over the sphere and she had seen the light that seemed to overtake him. And then she had seen him grab her daughter's arm and force her to share his fate. 

Beyond that she saw, but she did not bother to try and understand why Sark was standing up behind where her daughter had been standing. She didn't care that he had screamed her name as well. She didn't bother to wonder why he was bringing a small metal tube up to his lips or where the soulful music was coming from. There was only one thought in her mind and that was for her daughter. Everything else within her was black except for that thought.

Without thinking she raced towards the scene but she was blown off her feet as the explosion rocked the laboratory.

***

Irina managed to pick herself up off the floor.

Vaughn got up and brush the broken glass off of him.

Will looked about and wondered why the sphere was still glowing.

***

Vaughn raced down the stairs and through the laboratory. There was debris and dust everywhere but he soon saw one of the things he was looking for. He raced to the small table and picked up his daughter. He looked her over quickly, amazed that the explosion hadn't seemed to harm her in any way. He then looked her over a second time with the realization dawning on him that he was holding his daughter for the first time. And then he brought her into his arms and held her tight while tears rolled down his face. His daughter responded by giving a small cry.

Irina forced her way through the debris until she reached the damaged oval container. It was still glowing slightly but Irina ignored it. Instead she grasped the body of her daughter and held her tightly against her chest. She looked her over for signs of life but her body was already so cold. She looked her over a second time with the realization dawning on her that she was holding her daughter for the last time. And then she brought her into her arms and held her so tight. Tears sprang from her eyes as well but the cry that escaped was from her own mouth. It was a cry of sorrow and it seemed to echo around the building causing all those still alive to feel her sorrow.

Sark stood silently and watched; his face forlorn. He tucked the metal tube back into his jacket pocket and turned to leave. He felt more than a little out of place witnessing this scene. Irina happened to glance up and catch his eyes.

Still clutching her daughter to her chest she forced the words out of her mouth. "What have you done Sark?"

Sark looked at her mournfully but then hardened his face. "The only thing I could do Irina. The only thing I could. But it wasn't supposed to turn out like this!" His last statement almost coming out like a plea.

Irina broke her gaze away from him and rested her forehead on her daughter's chest. Her sobbing continued until she was joined by Will and Vaughn.

Irina would never forget two things from that day. The feel of her daughter's cold body held tightly against her own and the look on Vaughn's face when he held his daughter up against his chest and looked down at the body of the woman who should have been his wife. That everything she had done and sacrificed…that it should all end like this was unfathomable to her. And just about broke her heart.

Many years later she would remember a third thing from that day as well but it hardly seemed relevant compared to everything else that had come to pass. She remembered picking up her daughter's limp body and carrying her out to their trucks. But the thing that struck her about that day, was that she had no need to cry. When she exited the building she saw that the sky had covered over completely and as the rain pelted down on her face she remembered thinking that instead, the whole world was crying for her.


	14. Chapter 13

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has left a review or comment. I really appreciate them. I love hearing about what you liked or didn't like. You will be getting answers shortly but in the meantime, just to tease you all a little, Sark and Will will be coming back, I promise. Here you go…

****

Part 13.

A/N: Unless specified, all the conversations are taking place in French.

__

This song is Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers 

And time goes by  
So slowly  
And time can do so much

Six years later, in a small town in France.

Vaughn flipped his cell phone shut and disconnect the call. Glancing down at his watch he noticed that it was almost time. He hated to leave business so close to her arrival but this client could not be put off. He looked around his den to see if anything needed to be straightened up, but everything seemed to be in good order. 

Vaughn heard the main door open and some shuffling outside his office so he went to investigate. Maria the housekeeper was motioning for someone to come inside, so he moved towards the door to get a better look.

A young, pretty, raven-haired woman whom he thought looked vaguely familiar greeted him. As his eyes traveled down her arm, he saw that she was holding the hand of an even prettier blonde little girl whom he definitely knew. His face broke out into a grin.

"Hi sweetie" he said and the little girl let go of the woman's hand to embrace his hips.

"Papa!" she cried happily before letting go of his legs, dropping her knapsack in the hall and running off to turn on the TV. Maria threw her hands up in the air in an exasperated manner before picking up the discarded knapsack and putting it away.

Vaughn watched his daughter run down the hallway before turning his attention back to the woman who had brought her home. He raised his eyebrow in question.

The woman smiled briefly before extending her hand. "Good afternoon. Mr. Bristow, I presume?"

Vaughn shook her hand. "Actually I'm Michael Vaughn, but I'm Dawn's father if that's who you are looking for."

The woman looked slightly surprised but she recovered her poise quickly. "I'm Miss Élise Chevrier. I'm Dawn's teacher."

Vaughn nodded, finally remembering that he had seen her briefly when he had dropped his daughter off on the first day of school. "Come in." He invited with a swift motion of his arm.

Miss Chevrier walked into the house and Vaughn led her to the sitting room. "May I get you something to drink or…?"

She shook her head and waited until he sat down to start speaking. "I'm sorry to bother you at home Mr. Vaughn, but something happened at school today which I thought I should speak to you about. That's why I came home with your housekeeper and Dawn."

Vaughn felt the instantaneous wave of panic run through his body as he thought of all his worst fears coming to pass. Luckily these last six years had honed his skills and hardened him, allowing his thoughts to pass through his head with no reflection on his face. He forced himself to wait patiently for her to continue.

Unaware of the turmoil inside his mind, Miss Chevrier continued. "Today the children were making cards to give to all their mothers for Mother's Day. Everything was going well until I saw that Dawn was not working on anything. She was just sitting at her desk, looking down at her lap. So I went to talk to her but she just pushed me away. She said that I wouldn't understand. I held her back at recess to try and talk to her but she wouldn't say anything. I thought I would walk her home today to see if there was anything that I could do to help her. Obviously something is upsetting her, relating to her mother." She stopped speaking but her last statement was left as a question.

Vaughn forced an understanding smile to his face as he let out the breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. So they were still safe. For now. Unfortunately her teacher was looking at him like she expected an answer. "Her mother died shortly after she was born. She never knew her," he answered her neutrally.

A look of sympathy immediately crossed Miss Chevrier's face. "I'm so sorry. That would certainly explain Dawn's reaction in class today." She paused for a moment as if she were thinking of how to phrase her next sentence. "If I may be so bold as to suggest this, I think you should speak to Dawn about her mother. I think that something is bothering her…"

Vaughn nodded in agreement. "I will. Thank-you for bringing this to my attention. I will make sure that I speak with her." He stood up abruptly, signifying that the conversation had come to an end.

"If there's anything I can do to help, if you think that she needs a woman present—"

He interrupted her with a wave of his hand. "No, but that thank-you Miss Chevrier. I appreciate your concern and I thank-you for coming over but this is a conversation that is best done between me and my daughter, alone."

Miss Chevrier nodded to herself and followed him back to the door. He let her out and then leaned against the closed door. He couldn't even remember if he had said goodbye to her. But thoughts of Miss Chevrier did not concern him and so his mind quickly discarded the irrelevant. His mind was a whirl of different thoughts. He had been so sure that she was about to tell him about some blonde man that had approached his daughter or made some threatening move towards her or that maybe he had been discovered. But he shook his head at the last thought. If she knew that he was a wanted man she would not have come to his house. She would have just called the police.

Instead, she had come over to stir up demons that he had foolishly prayed would never be stirred up in daylight again. Demons that he faced every night for the last six years but only in his mind and in the safety of his lonely bedroom. He shuddered at the thought of bringing those demons out into his daughter's sight. 

He took another deep breath and forced himself to get off the door. Though his heart was hammering wildly in his chest he knew that he had to talk to Dawn. She deserved to know about her mother and he was determined not to repeat past mistakes. Sydney wouldn't let him. Sydney would haunt him even more if she thought for a minute that he was treating their daughter like Jack had treated her as a child. He just knew it. The irony of his life was not lost on him.

***

Vaughn walked into the living room and leaned against the wall, savoring the peaceful view. Dawn was lying on the floor in front of the television, on her stomach with her hands holding her chin up. Her long blonde hair was loose around her shoulders and she was laughing at the cartoons.

She turned her face and looked up at her dad and smiled. "Do you want to watch cartoons with me, Papa?"

Vaughn shook his head but before she could turn back to her cartoons he spoke. "Would it be alright if we talked instead?"

Dawn got up off the floor, somewhat reluctantly and slowly made her way to the couch. Vaughn picked up the remote and turned off the television before sitting down next to her.

"Why are you so sad honey?" he asked tilting her head up so that she was looking at him.

Dawn shrugged her small shoulders.

"Miss Chevrier said you were sad today in class."

Dawn looked down again, avoiding her father's eyes.

"It's ok honey. We can talk about mommy if you want." Vaughn said caressing the back of her head, in a comforting manner. He was surprised that the words came out as easily as they did.

Dawn looked up, her hazel eyes filling with tears. "But I don't want to make you sad too, Papa. And you always get sad when someone talks about her."

Vaughn thought he would cry, seeing his daughter struggle to avoid giving him any pain. And then he felt ashamed that he had made her worry about that. He was supposed to be protecting her, not the other way around. He brought her into a big hug. "I won't be sad darling, I promise. Do you want me to tell you about mommy?"

Dawn nodded her head against his chest. She stayed there against him for a few moments before leaning back so that he could speak.

Vaughn tried to put a smile on his face. He ignored the constriction around his heart and focused instead on his daughter's face. "Well what do you want to know. You must already know that she was beautiful because you look just like her." He said teasing her with a quick caress to her chin. She had his blonde hair, like he had had when he was a kid, before it had darkened in his teens. Her eyes were a mixture of green and brown and she had his chin. But other than that she was spitting image of Sydney.

His teasing brought a smile out of her and lent her some courage. "What was she like?" she asked softly.

Vaughn thought about it for a moment before answering. Where did he start? What would she understand? "Well besides being beautiful she was really strong and quick. Just like you when you're doing gymnastics."

Dawn's smile increased. "Did she do gymnastics too?" she asked excitedly.

Vaughn laughed at her eagerness. "Well I'm sure she must have at some point."

"Did she really look like me?"

Vaughn nodded and he knew that he couldn't help a touch of sadness from creeping onto his face.

"I wish I could have seen her." Dawn whispered, afraid that she was making her father sad again.

Vaughn paused for a moment in consideration. "Dawn, will you wait here for a moment?"

She nodded as she anxiously watched her father dart out of the room.

Wait for me  
Wait for me  
I'll be coming home  
Wait for me 

Vaughn raced upstairs to his room, having remembered something that his daughter would appreciate. But, as he got to his closet, he halted. Fear and uncertainty suddenly coursed through his body and he was unsure if he was ready to face what he was about to do. He stood there for a moment in front of his bedroom closet, breathing heavily from his run up the flight of stairs, staring at the doorknob. It was only the thought of his daughter downstairs, waiting for him that finally forced him to reach forward and actually grab to handle.

He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself before he opened the door to the closet. He flicked on the light switch and walked in. He knew what he was looking for and he knew where it was, but there was no way on this earth that he could face it in the dark.

He saw it in the corner of his walk-in closet and he had to brace himself against the doorframe as a wave of nausea assailed him. There, in the dark corner of his closet sat a dark green duffel bag. He waited a moment for the nausea to pass but that was why he had placed it in the far corner, when his clothes only took up the first rack. He always felt sick when he happened to look at it.

Vaughn took another deep breath and let it out slowly. Irina had once talked about a breathing technique that she used and he thought briefly and randomly that he would have to ask her about it when she got back from her trip. He rubbed his sweaty hands on his cotton pants.

Like a swimmer diving into icy waters he forced himself to take the pace forward and plunge into the abyss of his closet. He knelt down on the floor and opened the bag, wrinkling his nose as the smell reached him. It was the smell of dust, dirt and death. 

Carefully he pushed aside his old pair of boots and picked up the dark tactical clothing tangled together in the bag. He felt around for the pockets. When he realized that he was holding the pair of pants, he threw them back in the bag and kept looking for his jacket. He eventually found it and the pocket that he was looking for.

He fingered the button on the pocket for a few moments as he noticed some dried blood close to the flap. It was Sydney's blood; dried and old and as he stood there playing with the button, he was helpless to stop the memories as they came unbidden and forced their way into his mind. 

Most of all, besides the gray and the pain, it was the rain that he remembered. The rain coming down as they ran out of the building. He remembered seeing Will waving his hands towards the trucks that they had brought. He remembered Irina walking quickly in front of him, holding Sydney's limp body in her arms and how Sydney's head had laid bent back, staring up at the sky. He remembered how the rain had beat down upon them, relentlessly. He remembered Irina stumbling under the weight she was carrying and falling to the ground, all the while keeping her daughter wrapped in her arms. The scene shifted a little and he remembered Will going over to Irina and then turning to him as the rain pelted down and motioned for him to give him his daughter. He remembered Irina sobbing uncontrollably with her head against Sydney's unmoving stomach and the rain plastering her long hair to her face. He remembered that the scene had looked gray and washed out. He didn't remember turning Dawn over to Will, he just remembered suddenly feeling that his arms were empty and he had gone over to Sydney. He remembered pulling Irina away from her and he remembered looking down at Sydney one last time. Her face had been so pale and her lips were almost blue. The only color that he remembered at all from that day was the small trail of blood that came from her pallid lips. And last of all he remembered picking her up and holding her head close to his chest as he carried her the rest of the way to the trucks.

The memory faded as he touched the spots of blood on his jacket and he forced his attention back to the button. He slid it through the hole and dug his hand in. He didn't know why he was surprised that they were all still there. It somehow felt wrong to have anything left over from that day but here they were. Tangible evidence of his failure. His hand closed around a small box and some papers and he brought them out into the light.

He opened his hand and saw the small jeweler's box that had haunted his thoughts that night, six years ago. He opened it up slowly, unable to stop himself now. He had avoided this bag and its contents for six years. He was surprised how easily he opened it up now. He thought it would hurt a lot more.

Inside the box, he saw the heart-shaped sapphire and it sparkle brightly, almost knowingly at him. He picked up the ring carefully, his fingers looking too big to handle such a delicate and beautiful piece of jewelry. 

Memories of times never to come flashed briefly before his eyes. Sydney smiling at him when she accepted his ring. Sydney looking up at him on their wedding day when he lifted the veil from her face so that she could look at him with wonder and amazement. The happiness on Sydney's face when he lifted her up and carried her over the threshold of their new house. Bittersweet memories that only lived in his mind were made all the more poignant because they could have been real. They could have been, if only he'd been a little stronger or had a little more courage or listened to the damn voice in his head. 

He had been wrong a moment ago. It's not that it didn't hurt. It just hurt him so much, he could no longer feel it.

He shook his head to banish his thoughts away. He discarded the folded up paper that he had used to win Irina's release so many years ago and was left with only an old photograph in his hand. He looked it over, but at first the picture didn't really register in his mind. He noticed that the edges were bent and it had some scratches on it, but it would do. Looking at the picture again he heard the echo of his thoughts from six years ago. Like then, it was much harder now to look at a picture of her untouched by all the events that had occurred than to picture her lying dead in the wet grass. The first image had hope in it and that broke his heart all the more.

He tucked the photo and ring into his shirt pocket and closed his eyes. Dawn would have to wait a moment more for him because he wasn't ready to go back downstairs just yet.

__

I need your love  
I need your love

He saw Dawn sitting patiently on the couch waiting for him to come back. He sat back down on the couch next to her and pulled the picture from his pocket and carefully handed it to her. Dawn cradled it gently in the palms of her hand and stared at it for a long time.

"Mommy had red hair." She stated in a surprised voice.

Vaughn shook his head and wondered how he could explain this to an six year old. "No honey. She had long brown hair actually. But she used to dress up a lot of times to look like other people."

Dawn creased her forehead in confusion. "Why? Did she go to Carnival too?"

Vaughn smiled sadly and picked her up and moved her into his lap. "No, she was a grown up. Only little people dress up for Carnival." He paused for a moment before continuing, trying desperately to form his thought into coherent sentences. "What I am going to tell you now though, you can't ever tell anyone. Promise me."

Dawn tried to look all serious as she promised and crossed her heart.

He finally settled on the direct approach. His muddled brain could not handle anything more complicated. "Your mom had to dress up like other people because she had to trick bad people. She worked to bring some bad people to justice and sometimes she had to disguise herself. See, there was this really evil man that she was trying to stop. She had been trying to stop him for a very long time. But instead one day, this man caught her. He locked mommy up in a room for a very long time and he didn't let her out. One day, me and Will… You remember Will right? And your grandmother…we rescued your mom. That's when she told me that she had had you. Before that time, I didn't know or I would not have let her go chasing after that bad man. Your mom was so sad when I found her…" his voice drifted off until he noticed his daughter looking at him intently. She'd always been a serious child and he blamed himself for that entirely. Perhaps he just hadn't laughed enough with her.

"Well we all went after that bad man that stole you and we found him. But your mommy found him first. I think that was when she realized something very important. She realized that as much as she loved you, no matter how hard she tried, or how hard she worked, you would never be safe until she killed that very bad man. And so she did the only thing she could do. She killed him. But Sloane…that was the name of the evil man, he trapped your mom so that she died too." Vaughn stopped talking and looked into his daughter's face. "She loved you so much."

"Did you love her Papa?" Dawn looked at him earnestly.

Vaughn laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I loved her very much Dawn. And I wanted to marry her but…I never asked." He had to stop himself from apologizing to his daughter. She wouldn't understand nor did she need to add his guilt to her sadness.

"I want to give you something. It won't fit you now because your fingers are too small, but if you promise to take good care of it you can wear it on your chain that Baba gave you."

Dawn quickly promised again, her face brightening up at the prospect of a gift. Vaughn pulled the ring from his pocket and put it in her small hand.

Dawn placed the picture on her lap and picked up the ring carefully. She moved it around so that the light caused the gems to sparkle. "It's beautiful."

"I was going to give it to your mom if she agreed to marry me. Now, I can give it to the only other woman that I love and that would be you."

Dawn rewarded him with a giant hug and almost knocked him over. He lifted her hair and unhooked her gold chain and she handed him back the ring so that he could thread it on her chain. He rehooked her necklace and plopped her hair back down her back. She looked around anxiously and he could tell that her attention was wavering so he settled for some last words. "If you ever want to talk about mommy to me you can." 

"Why can't I tell anyone?" Dawn asked curiously.

Vaughn's forehead creased with worry. "There are still lots of people that are looking for me and Baba and there is still a bad man out there. He got away and we weren't able to stop him. I don't want him to ever find you. That's why we had to move last year. So this has to be our own little secret ok?"

Dawn nodded in understanding. There had been enough moving around in the last few years and she liked this small town that they lived in now. She liked her teacher. She didn't want to move again so soon.

Dawn picked up the picture off her lap. "Don't you want to keep this picture Papa?"

Vaughn smiled at her and rubbed her head affectionately. "I don't need to sweetie. Any time I want to see her I just have to look at you." He pinched her cheek playfully and let her go running up to her room to put away her new treasure. 

As she left the room he closed his eyes in relief. He had done it and he hadn't broken down. In fact, the smile from his daughter's face had helped heal him a little. He smiled sadly. There was still so much that he had work through but maybe he had taken the first step. He doubted that he could ever fill the hole in his soul completely, but maybe one day he could at least reassemble the pieces that were remaining of it. Maybe.

__ I need your love  
I need your love  
God speed your love to me 

Irina unlocked the front door and walked into the house. She was greeted by an excited six year old that quickly came to embrace her.

"Hi Baba!" Dawn cried as Irina bent down so she could throw her arms around her neck.

"How have you been my little angel?"

Dawn smiled brightly. "Good, of course. Did you bring me a present?"

Irina smiled and produced a wrapped package from behind her back. "Your father thinks that I spoil you." She said, switching from French to Russian.

Dawn beamed at the gift. She had understood but she replied back in French. "That's ok, Papa gave me a gift today too." She lifted the gold chain up to show Irina the ring. "He told me that he would have given it to my mom one day."

Irina frowned slightly before giving Dawn a quick kiss on her head and telling her to go bring the gift into her room before her father saw her. Dawn eagerly ran back upstairs with her present.

Irina went directly to the den and entered without knocking. Vaughn was looking through some files but he knew who had entered his study before looking up. There were only two people who would dare to disturb him and this one carried a lot more presence that the other. And she had bigger feet.

"How was your trip?" he asked in English, flipping through the remainder of the file before closing it and looking up at her.

"Fine." She replied bluntly also in English. It was just going to be one of those conversations. "I completed the contract with Hendershot. He will provide any intel he receives from his end if we can deliver the satellite codes for the new K-14 series satellites. I already have assets in place to acquire those codes. We should know more by the end of the week."

Vaughn nodded as he processed the new information.

"You told her about Sydney?" She asked directly. Her arms crossed over her chest in displeasure.

"Her teacher came by today to tell me that she had become upset in class when they were supposed to be making Mother's Day cards. So I decided to talk to her a little bit. She promised me that she wouldn't say anything. Perhaps I didn't make it clear that she wasn't supposed to tell you as well."

Irina glared at him. "If you were serious about keeping her safe—"

"Don't start with me!" Vaughn interrupted angrily.

"—you would have done what I'd suggest six years ago, changed all of our names and disappeared forever. Instead you foolishly believe that you can keep your name and identity and not have any repercussions from that!" Irina continued as though she hadn't been interrupted.

"And I told you six years ago that I would not condemn my daughter to a life based on lies. You and Jack did that to Sydney and it drove her to the very life you wanted to shield her from!"

Irina's eyes changed into angry slits. "Instead you are destroying her innocence by asking her to lie instead. Did you explain to her as well why she doesn't have the same last name as you? Was she able to understand that you wish to broadcast your guilt to the world?"

"It's not guilt." Vaughn said angrily, standing up. "It's the facts. She is her mother's daughter because I failed. I told you, I will not lie to her."

"Brilliant Michael. Just brilliant. And you expect a six year old to understand this. You are risking her life in case she accidentally mentions something to the wrong person." 

"She won't say anything. She's a smart girl. You should know. She's picking up your Russian lessons very quickly." Vaughn accused.

"Well if you insist on staying this course, then she will need all the skills that she can get." Irina retorted not missing a beat.

They glared at each other for a few minutes, each unwilling to back down. Finally Irina looked away. This was not a new argument for them and she understood her place in the new order of things. "Did you take care of the teacher?"

Vaughn raised an eyebrow. "She's not buried in the basement if that's what you mean."

Irina rolled her eyes and accepted his peace offering. Such was the nature of their relationship now. Friends or not, enemies or not, it didn't matter anymore. Though they were not related and had no formal ties to bind them, they were family nonetheless. The only family either of them had left.

For your love  
For love, lonely time 

Irina waited patiently in the hallway as all the children ran past her. The final bell had rung five minutes ago so she crossed her arms and leaned against the hallway wall. After another ten minutes, the flow of children seemed to have died down so she shifted her weight forward and moved carefully down the hallway. She had no desire to run into her granddaughter or the housekeeper who picked her up, but she wanted to make sure that she caught the teacher before she left as well. 

She made her way down the hallway and casually glanced in the classroom. The door was open and the raven-haired teacher was standing behind her desk, packing her bag. The classroom was empty of children.

Irina knocked on the doorframe and tilted her head to look at the teacher. Miss Chevrier saw her and smiled neutrally. "Can I help you?"

Irina went into the classroom and extended her hand. "I'm Dawn's grandmother."

Miss Chevrier's smile turned warm as she shook her hand. "You are Dawn's grandmother? Excuse me for saying this but you look too young to be a grandmother!"

Irina smiled because the teacher had meant it as a compliment, though she had to mentally remind herself that of that. "Thank-you. You are too kind."

Miss Chevrier smiled and waited for Irina to continue.

"I just wanted to thank-you for coming over last night. Michael told me of your visit and of his subsequent conversation with Dawn. It's difficult talking to someone so young about such sad matters but I think you were right. At the very least Dawn needs to know that she can always talk to her family."

Miss Chevrier nodded in agreement. "Yes, she seemed a little happier today and she interacted well with all the children. Are you Mr. Vaughn's mother?"

Irina shook her head. "No, I'm Dawn's maternal grandmother."

"Oh, well thank-you Mrs. Bristow for coming down to see me. Sometimes—" Miss Chevrier stopped as she saw the frown cross Irina's face. 

"Actually, it's Ms. Derevko" she offered quietly while cursing Vaughn's name in her head. It was bad enough that he was following this disastrous course with his daughter without forcing it upon her as well. But when he had said that he would not lie to his daughter, that also meant that he would not tolerate anyone else lying to her as well.

She watched the teacher's face shift to a frown and for the hundredth time she cursed Vaughn's stubbornness.

Miss Chevrier pursed her lips and finished her sentence tightly. "Yes, well as I was saying Ms. Derevko, I just wanted to thank-you for coming to see me and letting me know. Sometimes as a teacher, I don't know when I'm intruding or helping so it's nice to know when I am actually able to help."

Irina nodded and thanked her again, anxious to be on her way. As she was leaving the school she could only pray that she hadn't made things worse. She had gone there to check out the teacher and to make sure that the teacher was no longer worried about Dawn. She had wanted to avoid any further attention towards Dawn but she feared that she had done the opposite. 

Irina forced herself not to worry. They were in a small town. Her and Michael had contacts everywhere whose only purposes were to provide them with intel on the activities of all the groups that could possibly harm them. They were as safe as they could be.

***

Miss Chevrier finished throwing the last of her paperwork in her bag; her thoughts a whirl over recent events. She knew that Adrien would be coming by tonight and she couldn't help but smile. She thought of his handsome face and his beautiful blue eyes and her heart fluttered a little. Maybe tonight she would tell him what he wanted to know. 

She had met him two months ago when he came looking for information on Dawn and she had brushed him away. She smiled as she remembered all his attempts to get close to her, until the day he asked her to dinner without asking her first about Dawn. He had smiled at her, and her heart had melted. They had been seeing each other off and on since. He had explained to her that he'd had an argument with her father several years ago and he was just trying to find him to apologize. She had told that she would not talk about her students with him and he had left it at that. But perhaps tonight she would change her mind.

She shook her head as she thought about the kind of family Dawn lived with and her heart went out to the little girl. Dawn had never known her mother and obviously her mother and father had never married. And though her grandmother had seemed nice enough, she had either remarried or never married Dawn's mother's father! She shook her head in disgust. Maybe it would do Dawn some good if she met Adrien. He was so sweet and honest and Élise couldn't help but smile as she thought of him. Perhaps she would tell him where to find Dawn's father tonight. The child could only benefit from getting to know him.


	15. Chapter 14

Ok here we go. Thank-you so much for all the reviews. Sorry this chapter took longer, but never fear…this story haunts me. I have no choice but to finish it. I think this chapter should be called the calm before the storm…I guess we'll just have to see. 

Remember all comments and reviews are greatly appreciated!

PS. And a huge hug and thanks to Lia for reading this over for me and pointing me in the right direction!  
  
  
**Part 14.**  
  
_The song is Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones  
  
  
I watched you suffer a dull aching pain  
Now you decided to show me the same _  
  
  
  
Three years later. The conversations occur in English unless otherwise noted.  
  
Michael opened the front door and watched as his driver helped unload the bags from the trunk of the car while the passenger got out. He couldn't help the small smile that spread across his face as Will Tippin walked up the front stairs to the porch. Will's face broke out into a similar smile as he dropped his small carry-on bag on the porch and embraced Vaughn. Vaughn returned the hug sincerely. They had been through too much for a mere handshake to be sufficient.  
  
"Come on in Will." Vaughn said leaving a hand on his shoulder and picking up Will's abandoned bag with his other hand.   
  
Will looked at his friend with a worried face. "It's Richard now." He replied quietly.  
  
Vaughn shook his head. "Not here." Vaughn said firmly, opening the front door again. "Here you're still Will."  
  
Will sighed and followed Vaughn into the house. He was about to protest further but their conversation was interrupted as Dawn came halfway down the stairs to see who had arrived.  
  
Will's face broke out into a huge smile as he saw the little girl. "Hi Dawn," he called out happily.  
  
Dawn hung back on the stairs shyly until her father motioned her down the rest of the stairs.  
  
"Dawn, you remember Will, right? Well, it's been five years, you might not…but you remember all the stories I told you right?"   
  
Dawn nodded and looked at Will more closely.  
  
Vaughn laughed as he saw Dawn scrutinize Will. "Come on, we don't have to stand in the hallway, let's go sit down in the living room. Dawn, would you mind finding Maria and asking her to bring some coffee?" Vaughn asked and Dawn nodded. As she ran off to find the housekeeper, he motioned for Will to follow him towards the living room.  
  
Will found a seat on the sofa before turning back to Vaughn. "She looks just like her."  
  
Vaughn nodded silently but with a sad smile on his face.  
  
"And she's so big already."  
  
Vaughn nodded again. "Yeah, but she's still small for her age."  
  
Will looked at him concerned. "Do you think it's because of the Ram—"  
  
"No." Vaughn cut him off.   
  
Will looked at him skeptically. Vaughn wanted to drop the topic but the look on Will's face told him he was waiting for an explanation. Vaughn looked away from his friend before continuing. "The doctor that looked her over when we got here figured that she was probably born a month and half or two months premature. She is always going to be a small person. That's all it is."  
  
"Are you sure? 'Cause man, I didn't believe it at first, it's hard to tell looking only at yourself, but seeing you now after five years, I know it's true. You're what, 45 now? Something like that? You look the same. You haven't changed at all. You look thirty."  
  
"I know, I know." He rubbed his forehead and sat down next to Will. "You look exactly the same, as well. So does Irina. Whatever was in that building or maybe it was what exploded, I don't know…"  
  
"Well maybe it's affecting her as well."  
  
Vaughn shook his head. "It's not. We won't know for a while yet if she is going to be affected."  
  
Will looked confused. "How do you know?"  
  
"Because that's what Irina says. She says that she spoke to Sark about it one day when he first started working for her. Apparently in his case, it was passed down from his mother, but his aging process only started to slow down when he was seventeen or eighteen."  
  
Silence settled again and Will shook his head as he thought about everything. "My god…," his voice trailed off. "Why do I get the feeling that this is never going to be over."  
  
"It is over," Vaughn said firmly. "We've had no contact with Sark-- hell, no one's heard a peep from him in the last nine years. Maybe he just crawled under a rock and died licking his wounds, I don't know. I don't care. It's over. Dawn knows the whole story and I'm determined for her to live as normal a life as possible."  
  
Will nodded, but there was still a touch of skepticism on his face. "So how is she doing in school?" he asked to change the subject.  
  
"Really good. She's just plain too smart for her own good though," Vaughn said proudly. "I moved her to a private school four months ago. They gave her a few weeks off for Christmas and she doesn't have to go back for another week."  
  
Will smiled at his friend. "Doesn't she miss being away from home?"  
  
Vaughn shook his head. "Well, maybe the first few days she did, but then she started making friends and the school work is a lot more challenging for her so I don't think she had too much time to dwell on it. Everything is in English over there so she's had to force herself to speak it, which she wasn't used to. She's been kept pretty busy. Plus, I think she's found a new love."  
  
Will raised his eyebrow in question.  
  
Vaughn laughed and answered. "Ballet. They offer ballet classes several times a week and she got right into it. "  
  
They were silent for a minute, Vaughn lost in thoughts of his daughter and Will absorbing all the changes that five years had brought. Finally Will spoke again.  
  
"And how are things with you and Irina?"  
  
Vaughn rolled his eyes and Will couldn't help but laugh. "She always argues with me about Dawn, the business, the public school, the private school, her friends, our contacts…you know. Same old."  
  
Will laughed and nodded. "Hey at least you were never stuck in a closet with her…" Vaughn started to smile as well, until they both remembered that they didn't laugh about that. That, hit a little too close to the pain they kept skirting around. That event in particular had happened when they had gotten Irina out of custody in their quest to rescue Sydney. It marked the moment when they had turned their back on their lives all for the sake of saving her.   
  
That they had lost her but found Dawn instead only served to complicate their guilt. Such was the nature of their lives now. Guilt and laughter, pain and happiness; they were all intertwined.  
  
Though these thoughts lay unspoken and unacknowledged, they existed in each of their minds. The smile dropped from Vaughn's face as he continued. "But she really loves Dawn and everything she does is to keep her safe, I suppose." He paused for a moment, unsure whether or not to voice his opinion any further. But he had few friends, and certainly no one other than Irina that he could talk to about these matters so he continued. "She's changed though."  
  
Will's eyebrow raised again in a silent question, so Vaughn continued. "She's not the person she was before Sydney died. I mean even when Jack died and she didn't speak, she was still in complete control of everyone around her. Now, it seems less so. I think that in some fundamental way, when Syd died she broke. I think we both did."  
  
"I think we all did." Will amended.  
  
Vaughn nodded slowly. Will was right, of course. He knew Will had been through his own private hell, he had merely chosen to carry on with his life in a different manner. Nine years ago, after that night they had buried Sydney, everything had changed. The purpose binding them together had disappeared and they were left with nothing.   
  
Vaughn remembered that night vividly. The sorrow had been just too great not to mark it permanently on his soul. They had been sitting around a dingy motel room, arguing about what to do next. They were all edgy and unstrung and Dawn had kept crying. They had started bickering amongst themselves and accomplishing nothing when all of a sudden, Will stated that he was leaving. Vaughn didn't understand it at the time and he had tried to convince him to stay but Will had been adamant. His decision to leave had however, stopped their arguments and spurred them back into action. With a little money and some connections Irina had helped him recreated his life as Richard Peters. Will left and returned to the States leaving him and Irina to work out their own arrangements.  
  
Vaughn had followed Will's movements over the years. In part, he had done so to make sure he could help Will if he ever got into trouble, but he also did it to protect Dawn, Irina and himself. Will was a link to them and because of that, he could never really be parted from them; no matter how far away he ran. But Vaughn also knew that running away had not solved all of Will's problems. He knew that as Richard, he owned a modest apartment in Boston where he also owned a restaurant. He knew it was Will's small tribute to a lost love. He knew that Richard didn't write anymore, he only cooked. He knew Richard didn't dream anymore, he only lived.   
  
Vaughn also knew that Richard lay awake almost every night feeling the discomfort of sleeping with a gun under his pillow.  
  
Each of them, in their own way had tried to runaway from everything that had happened but it was impossible to do so completely. Will embraced his loneliness as his penance. His new life only served to mock him sometimes, showing him that his only peace was to be through lies but that those lies kept him alone. Vaughn had his daughter, and though he loved her with all his heart, she served him as a constant reminder of his loss and failure towards her mother. Irina still carried on and was successful at restoring parts of her organization so that she could aid Vaughn in protecting his daughter but she seemed empty now. It was like she had lost her chance for redemption and so she merely accepted and lived with her sins knowing that no atonement was ever to be possible.  
  
Vaughn looked at his old friend, as the silence settled between them once again and he realized that he had lied. Though Will did not look any older, he did look different. He had the same look in his eyes that Irina got from time to time and Vaughn suspected that the same look was occasionally mirrored in his own eyes as well. Just as everything must be paid for, it appeared that the years that had been removed from their faces had found their way into the depths of their eyes.  
  
  
***  
  
Sark casually stepped over the motionless body lying at his feet. He wiped his hands on his pants, but there was no need. It had been a clean kill. Sark knew this, but he briefly toyed with the idea of having a quick shower anyway. He glanced down at his watch and noticed the time. He supposed that his time could be better spent disposing of the body than trying to wash away any psychological dirt.   
  
Without any pretense Sark bent over, moved the long hair out of the way and picked up the body under the shoulders. He dragged it up to the deck of the yacht where he had an employee help him wrap it and attach weights on it so that it could be dumped. It didn't take more than a few minutes before they were speeding away back to shore and Sark was left with his thoughts once again.   
  
He was relieved that tonight was over, but he wasn't exactly sure why. He had lied to and used many women in the past and it had never bothered him before. Irina had taught him well how to use the charms that he had been given.   
  
He certainly wasn't squeamish about what he had done tonight; in fact he had almost relished it. It wasn't that he enjoyed getting his hands dirty, so to speak, but he had been looking forward to it nonetheless. And that didn't make any sense to him. He wasn't glad so much that he had killed her, but rather that he would no longer have to pretend to dote on her. It was very strange feeling. And he'd certainly never been this unsettled before. It seemed important to him to grasp the reason for his feelings but he couldn't put his finger on it.  
  
Sark sat down on the deck and watched the boat move through the water. He was free now to do whatever he wanted and yet he found himself reluctant to change his course of action. Though Rambaldi's legacy was now his own to do with as he wished, he found himself unable to hate it as he once did. It had caused his own mother to hate him. It had damned him to half a century of confinement. It had destroyed a woman that he…admired. It had chained him to a fate he neither asked for nor wanted. And up until nine years ago, he had been doing everything in his power to destroy it.  
  
Was his relief now somehow tied to his reluctance to complete his task? He shook his head. All he knew was they he wanted to find out what school Vaughn had transferred his daughter to. Élise had lost her usefulness to him, which was why she was now sinking to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. He couldn't afford anyone knowing his face, even if everything they knew about him was false.   
  
  
_"So how is school going, my love?"  
  
Élise smiled. "Pretty good I guess, though I'm quite happy that I still have another week of Christmas vacation left. They really wear me out."  
  
Sark listened. "Well at least that troublesome boy is leaving for a private school, isn't he? The class won't be mischievous without his influence."  
  
Élise nodded. "You're right, Adrien. But I just feel like I failed him as a teacher. I think I should have been able to find a way to keep him under control. But the Principal was anxious to get him out. He always is. Rather than dealing with issues and trying to come up with solutions that could help the children, Mr. Barret merely recommends that they leave. It's so frustrating!"  
  
"He doesn't sound like a very good Principal then."  
  
"He's not. He's horrible! He's more interested in being able to boss around all the teachers then having a good school. Look what he did to Dawn! I talked to her teacher; she was ready to skip a grade. But no…Mr. Barret says that would be unfair to the other children. I don't blame her father for taking her out of the school and moving her to a private school. It's better for her. Especially if Mr. Barret wants to hold all the students down to the lowest denominator!"  
  
Sark nodded sympathetically. "I hope Mr. Barret didn't recommend the same school for Dawn that he did for the boy that was always getting in trouble!"  
  
Élise laughed. "No, don't worry, he didn't. I don't know where Dawn's father enrolled her but I'm sure it's a much better school than where he's going. I got the impression that her father was fairly wealthy so he probably sent her to the best school he could." Élise paused to drink some more wine. After she set her glass back down on the table, she looked into his eyes. "How come you never went to see him, to apologize?"  
  
Sark had known that she had wanted a serious answer but he had merely waved his hand as if the issue was irrelevant. "My sweet Élise. I saw how much it bothered you when I came around asking for his address. It wasn't worth it. Now instead I have you. I think I made the best choice. Don't you?" _  
  
Élise had smiled at him and never even suspected that her life was about to be cut short.  
  
  
As the wind blew across the deck, Sark casually brushed aside some stray hairs from his face and adjusted the glove on his left hand. Like every other time that he consciously thought of his hand he felt the expression on his face darken. He had never considered himself vain, but he couldn't bear to look at the scars and deformity. He supposed that in some sense he was lucky that he had regained some functionality from it, but he didn't think that that luck would be worth it, if it brought him to his down fall. He was marked now, just like his grandfather had predicted.  
  
He rubbed his left hand with his right like he was trying to sooth it. It had healed as best as possible but it still ached horribly when it rained. And it was definitely going to rain tonight.  
  
Sark looked at the sun setting in the horizon and decided that maybe he would have that shower after all. He briefly wondered again, what was wrong with himself. He sighed in frustration and settled for performing some action. He'd start with a shower and wonder why later.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Vaughn stripped off his shirt and threw it into the laundry hamper. He was glad that Will had been able to stop by for a visit on his way to a business trip. Part of him wished that he could have stayed longer and another part of him wished he had never shown up. They could take comfort in each other because they shared the same pain but it was those very shared experiences that haunted them to begin with.  
  
At least Will had solved his inner conflict by limiting his visit to a few hours. He claimed that he didn't want to run into Irina again, because she still made him nervous. Irina had laughed when Vaughn had told her that, after Will had left. He didn't blame Will though. Sometimes she made him very nervous as well.  
  
Vaughn went into his small bathroom that joined his bedroom and he washed his face. He couldn't help but look at himself in the mirror. He did look exactly the same. All three of them did. He dried his face and shut the lights. He shook his head. Life just wasn't fair. He didn't know what kind of cruel joke it was to have to watch the woman that should have been his wife die in front of him, only so that he could be granted eternal life. Was it not punishment enough that everyday of his existence was marked with an emptiness that he couldn't fill, without having his punishment dragged on forever?   
  
He turned off his bedroom light and walked over his bedside table. It was unadorned except for a picture of Dawn and his alarm clock. He sat on the bed and opened up the small drawer underneath the table. He didn't need the light to know what was in it. He picked up the small handgun that he kept in it and held it in his hands. It was the only peace he really knew.   
  
He liked the weight of it in his hands; it was familiar and heavy. It represented the fact that one day there would be an end to his suffering, even if the end was of his own choosing. One day when Dawn didn't need him anymore he would pull the trigger on himself. He had already decided that.  
  
He sighed and put the gun back in the drawer. He wouldn't be able to use it tonight.   
  
Vaughn pulled his pillow up against the wall and sat on the bed. He had forgotten to close the drapes and so the room was filled with moonlight. He stared into space as he thought about all the memories that seeing Will had resurfaced in his mind.  
  
Sometimes he wondered if he wasn't just going through the motions of living, while the world passed him by. Dawn was involved in a whole new world now and she was happy there. He wondered briefly how much she still needed him.   
  
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a slight glow but he didn't look towards it. He felt his heart constrict as he kept his eyes away from the glow. It was torture for him but he knew it would be worse if he moved his head. He felt the glow getting closer to his field of view so he shut his eyes. He couldn't do this tonight.  
  
_…Michael……_  
  
He wouldn't do it. He squeezed his eyes shut in defiance.  
  
_…Michael……_  
  
Who was he kidding? He opened his eyes and let his sight fall towards the window. He felt his breath catch in his throat and for the hundredth time in the last nine years he wondered if he was going crazy.  
  
He knew he was sane enough to appreciate the irony of it all, though. Sydney, who at the end of her life had not even been able to look towards the sun, now stood before him bathed in moonlight. Like a shadow herself and yet she looked more peaceful than he had ever seen her.  
  
He looked at her and he knew the true meaning of pain as she smiled at him gently. He closed his eyes as he felt his heart break all over again and he felt a tear escape from his eyes. He could almost feel her caressing his cheek, telling him to hold on and be brave. He couldn't help the few tears that still escaped him as he tried to reach forward with his hand to touch her, but like every other time his hand only closed on air.   
  
He opened his eyes again and saw his empty room and wondered briefly if he dared risk her wrath to come join her now.   
  
What a difference a decade could make. He hadn't been lying at the time, when Irina had asked him if he believed in an afterlife. He had said no because he could not comprehend a God that would allow so much suffering. Now he clung to the belief that there was life after death, in the hope that he could actually find happiness deep within his soul one day.  


  
_I know I've dreamed you a sin and a lie   
I have my freedom but I don't have much time   
Faith has been broken tears must be cried   
Let's do some living after we die _  


****


	16. Chapter 15a

****

Part 15a.

__

This song is The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie (Covered by Nirvana)

He said I was his friend  
Which came as a surprise  
I spoke into his eyes  
I thought you died alone  
A long long time ago

Seven years later.

Vaughn unlocked the front door and dropped his small carry-on bag warily to the floor. Without pausing, he unzipped his jacked and threw it haphazardly on the stairs, which led to the upper level. The house echoed eerily of silence. 

The housekeeper only came every couple of days now, and Dawn was away at school again so the house was usually empty of late. And with him and Irina always travelling; keeping track of their assets, he never got the chance to mind the quiet that had developed over the last few years. He usually even found it comforting the odd time he found a moment to relax. But tonight, even with exhaustion dripping from his body, he found it oddly disconcerting.

He shrugged off his strange imaginings and wandered into his living room. He could almost feel the couch calling out to him and he embraced its call by throwing himself down upon it. It had been a long and tiring trip and he felt the start of a headache coming on. 

He sighed to himself and lay his arm over his eyes. His headache was starting and Irina wasn't even home yet. 

Vaughn was about to let himself drift off into unconsciousness, as his exhaustion settled in, when he heard the front door unlock. He groaned at the interruption and braced himself for what would inevitably follow. The door slammed shut and the noise reverberated through his aching head causing his headache to claim a stronger grip on his gray matter. He could almost feel his stress hormones rising as he heard the telltale sound of Irina's shoes in the hallway.

Vaughn slowly brought the arm that was lying over his face down and he saw Irina enter the living room and eye him lying on the couch. Her arms were crossed over her chest indicating that she was still angry with him. If that wasn't enough, her mouth was tightened into a thin line and she was staring at him. No, she definitely wasn't happy with him. 

Vaughn was content to keep the silence as he eyed Irina who was eyeing him. He knew how this game was played. Apparently he was the more patient of the two though, because she finally uncrossed her arms and held out her hand.

"Fine. Be like that!" she snapped and moved closer to him. "Why don't you just give me the damn disk and I will go put it in the safe. Obviously you look like you are in no shape to move from that couch for the next week, and since you insisted on bringing it home--"

Vaughn waved his hand at her. "I did what you suggested. I made the switch already."

Vaughn listened to the sweet sound of silence as Irina stared at him hard for a few more minutes before turning around and switching on the TV. Vaughn tried not to wince as the blaring sound from the TV invaded his mind but he wasn't too successful. As his ears adjusted to the increased volume he looked at her in confusion as she flipped through the channels until she landed on the local weather forecasting channel. "What are you doing?" he asked finally.

Irina turned back at him and threw the remote control into his lap. "Just checking to see if hell has frozen over."

Vaughn rolled his eyes. And he had thought she might just let it go if he did what she wanted. He used the remote to turn off the TV.

Irina wasn't finished yet though. "Because I mean, if the great Michael Vaughn finally took his head out of his ass for once in his life, to listen to someone other than himself, hell must have frozen over. Forget that I have almost fifty years in this business and that I may have learned a thing or two, forget that you weren't even born when I went on my first mission, forget all of that! Because Michael Vaughn knows everything!--" 

"Irina"

"You think that you have a stronger death wish than me? Is that what you think? That life has been so much harder on you?"

"Irina!" Vaughn finally shouted at her as he stood up and faced her directly.

She closed her mouth and looked at him. She was obviously still angry with him, but there was something more in her face. She continued speaking but she was almost whispering now. "You made a mistake. You almost got yourself killed out there because you were too stubborn to wait for me. You think that listening to me at the end of our mission is going to make up for it?" 

Vaughn looked away. He knew she was right. He had almost been killed because he had decided to proceed alone. If Irina hadn't anticipated the guards' movements when she didn't find him at his post, he would have been dead. "You're right. I'm sorry I didn't wait." He replied quietly as well.

Irina sat down on the couch, drained. "Michael, you have to stop this. You are going through each day like you pray that it's your last. Don't think that I haven't seen it. Thank heaven Dawn is away at school or she would have picked up on it as well. It's been sixteen years. You have to move on."

Vaughn turned away. "I can't."

Irina sighed and Vaughn turned back to face her. "You don't understand."

Irina looked at him. "Don't I?"

Vaughn looked hard at her face and debated saying anything further. He shook his head and decided against it. She already thought he was crazy. He didn't need to give her confirmation.

As Vaughn turned again to leave, Irina spoke. "She hasn't been coming to see you as often, has she?"

Vaughn froze in his tracks, fear piercing him to the bone. He turned back to look at her, forcing his face to remain blank, but she was looking down anyway. He was unable to force himself to speak though.

Irina looked back up at him. "I know. Jack visited me as well, but now it's been over a year."

Irina stood up and put a hand on Vaughn's arm. "I'm going to go out for a little bit. Go shower, and go to bed. We can talk more about this in the morning if you want."

Vaughn nodded slowly as he watched Irina leave the room. A moment later he heard the front door close. He didn't know if he was supposed to feel better now or worse. 

***

Vaughn stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel. The hot water had helped his aching muscles a little and the aspirin had taken the edge out of his headache. _Too bad I can't find anything to cure the ache within my soul_, he thought despondently to himself.

He grabbed the pair of flannel pants and a T-shirt from the pile of clean laundry sitting on his bed and put them on. He briefly debated going to bed and putting an end to this miserable day but then he changed his mind. He decided to get something to drink. He needed something harsh and preferably alcoholic.

He wandered through his darkened house, not bothering to turn on any lights. He fumbled with the latch on his liquor cabinet and he was about to reach in when he heard a small noise coming from his den. He looked at the clock on the wall and wondered briefly if Irina would be back already. He left the cabinet door open and turned to investigate.

The door to his study was slightly ajar but the lights were off. Without hesitation, Vaughn turned on the light switch that was close to the door and walked towards his desk. A quick glance told him that all his papers were in order and he noticed nothing obviously out of place. 

Vaughn rubbed his forehead in confusion. _I must be more tired than I thought because I'm hearing things now_, he thought to himself. He shook his head and was about to turn around and leave his office when he heard the distinct sound of a handgun being cocked behind him.

Whether it was because of his headache or years of experience in the business, Vaughn calmly raised his hands and turned around. He knew the drill. However, his jaw dropped slightly as he recognized the person moving slowly out of the shadows and he realized that he should probably be more afraid than he was. "We really need to stop meeting this way." Vaughn stated matter of factly.

Sark tipped his head in silent agreement but he kept his gun trailed on Vaughn's chest.

Vaughn lowered his hands slowly and leaned back against his desk. "What do you want Sark?" Vaughn asked warily. "There's nothing for you here. I'm assuming that if you wanted to kill me you would have done so already."

"That's not quiet true, Mr. Vaughn." Sark answered slowly.

The apprehension in Vaughn's face increased slightly. "There's nothing for you here. You've already taken everything from me that you could."

Sark continued to look at him seriously before twisted his lips like he was thinking. "That's also not quite true."

Vaughn leaned back quickly to release the secret latch on his desk so that he could retrieve his own gun but a loud shot rang through the room. Vaughn staggered back away from his desk and for a brief moment wondered why his stomach was burning. 

Instinctively Vaughn brought his hands up to his mid-section to hold it against the burning in his stomach but that didn't ease the pain. He just felt his hands getting wet. 

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Vaughn brought his left hand up to his face, but all he could see was that it was covered in blood. And like a cheap special effects show, his world suddenly caught up to the real time as he felt the pain burst forth from his stomach and travel all the way throughout his body. He saw his world tilt sideways, but it was only when he felt the floor beneath him, that he realized he had fallen to the ground.

Sark crouched down and waited a moment for Vaughn to overcome his initial stress. As Vaughn's eyes slowly focused back onto his face he continued. "Mr. Vaughn, I'm going to be straight with you, you will die today. But you and I have certain things to discuss before you do."

Black spots swirled before his eyes but Vaughn was able to finally focus on the man in front of him. "…Why?" he forced out as a strangled whisper.

Sark leaned down so that he was closer to Vaughn's face. "Because you would have gotten yourself killed any day now, but I wouldn't have been there. You are the one who wants to die, Mr. Vaughn."

Vaughn felt his eyes starting to roll to the back of his head and he would have passed out from the shock if Sark had not slapped his face.

"Not yet, Mr. Vaughn, we're not done yet." Sark shook Vaughn's face and then held his chin so that Vaughn had no choice but to look at him.

"What do you want?…" Vaughn whispered before he started to cough up blood.

Sark leaned back on his heels before putting his gun away in his waistband. "I'm in a position to give you some peace Mr. Vaughn, but I need something from you in return."

Sark saw Vaughn try to focus his eyes on him and took that as a sign that he was still following the conversation.

"I have nothing…just my daughter--" Vaughn's voice caught in his throat as another spasm racked his body. But the words that he had just spoken out loud finally reached his brain. "No……." he whispered his scream until he doubled over coughing.

Sark turned Vaughn's head so that he didn't choke on his own blood and then helped him lean up against the bottom of his desk.

"Sydney comes to visit you sometimes, doesn't she?"

Vaughn closed his eyes briefly in shock and pain but he slowly nodded his head, unable to speak.

"Well you can be with her one day. I can give you and her peace but I need something from you in return." Sark paused a moment as Vaughn processed his words. "I want to court your daughter."

Vaughn's eyes widened in surprise and anger as he started to curse. "You bastard! You stay away from her!" his anger gave him a sudden burst of energy that allowed him to propel himself towards Sark and knock him off balance.

Sark retaliated by knocking Vaughn back with a swift sweep of his arm. Vaughn fell back against the desk, banging his head against the wood and causing more blood to come out of his mouth. Sark waited for Vaughn's coughing to quiet before he resumed talking.

"Listen, you don't have much time. I will give you what you want. I will give you and Sydney an eternity together. But if I do that, I am giving you the power to stop me. I know how you insist on telling your daughter the truth about everything. I want to court her. In doing so, I swear that I will never lie to her. But if she manages to still love me for who I am, then I want you to never communicate to her anything about me. You know that some communication is possible. You know that Sydney has been able to whisper things into your head. I'm sure that she's even saved your life once or twice over the last few years. Isn't that why you keep risking yourself? In the hopes that she will appear to you again? It's not that she doesn't want to, but her energy is getting weaker. She is starting to dissipate. But I can fix this, I can bind you two together forever, but in return I want you to give me a chance to know love as well."

Sark watched as Vaughn verged on passing out again but he forced Vaughn to look at him. "Promise me that you will not say anything to her unless I lie to her."

Vaughn looked into his killer's face. He would have spit into it but he didn't have the energy. "She will never love you for who you are Sark. She's too good a person for that."

Sark moved back slightly. "Then you have nothing to worry about, don't you?" His voice was hard.

Vaughn closed his eyes. What kind of choice was he being asked to make? He knew he was going to die shortly, there was nothing he could do about that. He could see the darkness hovering on the edges of his vision. He wasn't even sure there was anything he would want to do about it, even if he could, except for the threat to his daughter. Because though it was dark, the oblivion held the lure of peace for him. 

But if what Sark had told him was true…he had no choice but to agree to it. He could sink into oblivion forever and Sark could still pursue his daughter or he could be with Sydney and in some way with his daughter as well. He could watch over her. 

Vaughn closed his eyes. He could not bear to look into Sark's face as he gave a short nod to seal his fate. The pain was coming in waves now and he could barely concentrate on anything else. He kept his eyes closed, trying to stop the spasms from overtaking his body but he felt his head gently being placed back against the desk. He wanted to open his eyes. He wanted to know what was happening but he kept his eyes closed. 

Suddenly a soft melody entered the room and the shock of it almost made him forget his pain and open his eyes. But it was a melody so haunting and yet so familiar and it seemed to tug at his very soul. He kept his eyes closed and embraced the melody. After that, it was not long before he understood everything.

***

Irina opened the front door to the house and let herself in. It was well into the middle of the night so she made her way through the hallway quietly not willing to wake Vaughn up. She was unsure if he had taken her advice of a shower and bed or merely just collapsed on his living room couch. His exhaustion had been obvious.

It was therefore with some surprise that she saw the light to his study on and the door slightly ajar. She felt her anger at his stubbornness returning and before she could stop herself she had changed her direction and was heading towards his study. She had already planned a few choice words for him as she reached the door and threw it open.

Irina stared at the sight before her for a full minute before she braced herself against the doorway. This was too much. 

Somehow her feet brought her into the room before giving out on her and as she knelt beside Vaughn's lifeless body, she lay herself across his chest and cried. It wasn't fair. She couldn't do this by herself. She wasn't strong enough anymore for this and she was tired of doing this! She let her sobs overtake her last shred of control as she collapsed on top of his unmoving chest and gave into the oblivion of complete anguish. As the sobs racked through body, she wasn't even sure anymore what she was mourning and as time ticked away and her sobs echoed throughout the empty house, the night faded away and the sun started to peak its way over the horizon.

Drained and exhausted, Irina's cries finally subsided and she was able to lift her face up and looked into his. She noticed that for the first time ever, he looked at peace. 

Irina clenched her fist in anger and misery. She was getting tired of burying members of her family. But her anger allowed her to forced herself back up to assess the situation in the hopes of finding out what had happened. Obviously the gunshot wound to his stomach had killed him but as she looked around the study she could see nothing missing. She saw the curtains blowing slightly from the wind so Irina walked over to the window. It was partially opened and the lock looked like it had been forced. 

Irina slammed the window shut in anger. There was nothing she could do about it now, except clean up and deal with the mess. She would also have to tell Dawn.

As Irina was about to turn away from the window she caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection. It seemed that her life had now come full circle. Like his father before him, she was left to move on again with him dead at her feet. With his father she'd had to move on to protect her daughter and now with his son she had to move on once again to protect her granddaughter. And like before, she was left wearing their blood as a reminder of her sins. Irina closed her eyes. Her life was coming full circle and she was getting tired of burying the people that she cared about.

__

Oh no, not me  
We never lost control  
You're face to face  
With The Man Who Sold The World


	17. Chapter 15b

Ok, sorry this part took so long, I've just been so crazy busy. But here you go. Hopefully, I can get the remaining parts out in a timely fashion. If I had divided this story up into different 'books' the next part (Part 16) would represent the start of the last book. So we're getting there! (And pushing 60,000 words!)

Someone asked for a summary of how old the characters were after all these jumps into the future. So after this next jump (and it will be the last big one I promise) Dawn will be 20, Sark will be ~70-80 (but he looks about 25) and Irina will be ~ 70 (but looks like she did when she was 50 – ie. on the show). I hope that helps.

Remember, any comments are greatly appreciated. Just my eyes have looked this over, so please let me know if anything is wrong! Thanks!

  
**Part 15b**

__

I searched for form and land, 

For years and years I roamed,

I gazed a gazley stare

At all the millions here 

We must have died alone, 

A long long time ago

__

My heir, the inheritor of my legacy and my would-be redeemer…My greatest prize… He will be a man once marked and yet also the man who will plunge the world into darkness. His very sign will extinguish the light of the world…

Weep, weep, weep young children for the ending of an age!

-Milo Rambaldi

Four years later.

Irina set her mug down on the coffee table and sat back on the couch. A small sigh managed to escape from her before her granddaughter entered the room and forced her to sit back up.

"Did you get a chance to look over those forms yet?" Dawn asked.

Irina sighed again and rubbed her eyes absentmindedly with the back of her hand. "Dawn why do you want to do this? There are so many great schools here in Europe…"

"Please don't start with this again." Dawn said quietly as she leaned against the wall in an exasperated manner. "I want to go school in the States! I want to pursue a graduate degree and the University of Columbia has the best music department there is. I don't know why this is such a problem! Both you and my mother did your graduate degrees."

Irina stood up and crossed her hands in front of her. She was getting too old for this. "You don't know why it's a problem? The fact that your family is wanted by the US government isn't a big enough problem? And please don't say that you haven't done anything wrong. I know that. But they will find you. Are you prepared to be found guilty by association? They will interrogate you. They will treat you like a criminal because of nothing more than whom your parents were. Your father spent his life trying to ensure your safety without making you sacrifice anything. Now you want to move into the lion's den?"

"My father never asked me if I was willing to take his sacrifice so that I wouldn't have to give anything up. Now it doesn't matter because look where it got him!"

"Dawn!" Irina shouted but her granddaughter had spun around and exited the room. Irina followed her up to her bedroom where she found her sprawled on her bed sobbing.

Irina sat down next to her and lay a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Dawn, your father loved you very much."

Dawn continued sobbing. To be honest, Irina had seen this fight brewing. There was only so much internalization that someone could do before everything burst forth from them. Dawn had been effected by her father's death in ways not obvious to everyone. She had always been a quiet girl, but when Irina had gone to visit her at the boarding school to tell her that her father was dead, Irina had seen her internalize all her feelings. Irina had seen the shock and loneliness filling her eyes but Dawn had shrugged off her attempts to comfort her. Irina had even seen the look of guilt flash briefly across her face but Dawn had refused to talk about it with her.

Irina had accepted the rebuff. She knew that some griefs need to be understood first, before they could be shared. But as far as she knew, Dawn hadn't shared them with anyone. And then last year Dawn had started expressing her desire to travel to the States.

Irina had always found ways to avoid the topic but finally, yesterday, Dawn had dropped the admittance forms on her lap, almost all filled out.

Finally Dawn lifted her head and spoke; her words blurred by her tears. "It's my fault that he died."

Irina swept a stray lock of hair from Dawn's face. "No, it isn't sweetie." Irina replied firmly. "Your father was shot and I know for a fact that you didn't pull the trigger."

Dawn shrugged her shoulders. "I know Baba, but I saw him when I came home to visit a few months before. I was telling him about the ski trip I went on over Christmas vacation and I could see the look on his face. When I told him how Amy and I visited her parents for Christmas dinner I could tell something was wrong. He looked like he was happy for me, but he wasn't really. I could see the sadness in his eyes. I was showing him that I didn't need him anymore. Maybe he would have fought harder against the man who killed him, if he thought I still needed him!" Dawn paused a moment contemplating her guilt. "I know my Dad. I know that he could have done anything if he wanted to badly enough. "

Irina sighed. Her granddaughter was a tad too perceptive for her own good sometimes. "Dawn, you can't carry around this unfounded guilt. It's not your fault. As for your father's desire to live, to be honest, I think that he lost something from his soul the moment your mother died. I think he was just tired of being separated from her. But I know he loved you very much. I promise. Trust me, no man could argue that much with me unless he was doing it for someone he loved very much!"

Dawn cracked a smile at her grandmother's last statement. She'd seen or heard many of their arguments and her father had won every single one of them. Dawn understood how impressive that was. She had seen many people argue with her grandmother over the years, but her father was the only one that had EVER won. "It's just that I'm tired of being bound by something that started before I was even born. It's over now and I need to move on from it. Amy sent in her application for Columbia two weeks ago and I know she's going to get accepted. I want to go too. I want to get away from all this."

Irina nodded in understanding and sighed. It appeared there was little she could do to change Dawn's mind now but if she was honest with herself, she didn't really want to try. The truth of the matter was that she was getting tired of it all as well and the idea of breaking free, regardless of the consequences held a certain appeal. Irina smiled softly at her granddaughter. "Finish filling out your application, and we'll look it over in the morning ok?"

Dawn nodded gratefully and threw her arms around her grandmother. "Thank-you Baba." 

Irina returned the hug and then got up off the bed. After saying her goodnights Irina made her way downstairs. There was still much to be done if her granddaughter really was going to move to the States. Irina sighed. Though Dawn was anxious to remove the chains that bound her, Irina knew that reality wouldn't be as forgiving. As she descended the stairs, Irina's mind ran through all the assets that could help her and the favors that were owed to her. It would require some doing but she could manage it.

***

Irina picked up her mug that she had left in the living room and felt the sides of it. She decided that it was still warm enough to drink so she held the mug in her hands while she walked into Vaughn's old study. 

She had left almost everything the way it was since his death. Though she had fought him tooth and nail on almost everything, in the end, she had just left things the way they were. Well, almost. She'd had the carpet replaced with an identical one and the blood cleaned off the room. Though she had been bound to tell the truth to his daughter, she felt no need to describe in detail the circumstances of his death. Wasn't it enough that he was dead and he had left her here alone?

She sighed as she sat down on the leather chair and took a sip of her coffee. And now Dawn wanted to move to the US to go to school. Irina had no doubt that Dawn would be able to fit in, she always did and Irina knew that after she called in a few of her favors, she would even be relatively safe. 

But what about herself? Irina knew that though she looked no older than she did twenty years ago, she was getting too old to start over again. How many lives could one person be expected to live? And perhaps that was the reason why she had been so against Dawn moving away; Dawn was trying to remove the shackles that bound her as well.

Irina set down her mug and pulled out a small leather journal from a drawer. Vaughn had insisted that Dawn be told the truth about everything and for the most part she had obeyed. But on some level Irina wondered if it was enough. So, like she had done everyday for the last twenty years, Irina wrote down a few words in her journal. She described her plan and what she had to do and why.

Though she was absorbed in her writing and laments about how old she was getting, Irina had not lost the instincts that had kept her alive for so long. She noticed the door opening slowly but she mistakenly thought it was her granddaughter. It was so that she lost the opportunity to break-free from the shackles forever.

Sark casually walked in and shut the door behind him, never taking his eyes off of his old employer. Irina made to reach for her gun, tucked away under the desk but Sark motioned for her to stop. He already had his weapon drawn and pointed at her.

"Don't bother Irina, it's too late for that now, anyway."

Irina stopped her motion towards the gun, all the while never taking her eyes off of her old employee.

Irina skipped the irrelevant questions of 'How did you get in here' or 'How did you find me' and went directly to the point. "What are you doing here Sark?"

Sark shrugged his shoulders but the expression on his face told her that he had a purpose. He hadn't waited twenty years to show himself for nothing.

Finally he spoke. "I suppose we do have much to discuss Irina, but mostly I just want to know why you like everyone else, betrayed me?"

Irina sighed again for like the millionth time that night. "I didn't betray you Sark." She stated simply. As the silence settled, Irina knew that he didn't accept her answer. "We had an agreement. We both wanted Rambaldi's legacy destroyed. You of all people should know why I went to the CIA, there was nothing else for me to do except what I could, to help my daughter. You're the one that infiltrated Sloane's organization. You're the one that had the opportunity to destroy all his works! Instead went along with his schemes and did the very opposite. You're the one that betrayed me Sark."

Sark stood firmly in front of her. "I haven't changed Irina. I joined Sloane so that I could accomplish my mission. Weren't you the one that taught me to keep my enemies closer than my lovers? I still want to destroy my grandfather's work. He sentenced me to this life and for that I can never forgive him. He bound me up in his prophecies like a pawn. But I will be no one's pawn anymore. I trusted you. You freed me from my hell, locked away in an attic, you trained me and showed me the way to destroy the prophecy, but you lied to me. You treated me like a little pawn yourself. You kept the key to all his works to yourself. Did you really think that I wouldn't find out about the other prophecies? Or did you just not trust me like everyone else, because I'm supposed to be the Doom-Bringer? Is that it? That with one hand you nurtured me while with the other you controlled me?"

"It wasn't like that--"

"Then how was it?" Sark interrupted. "You knew the answer to our riddle all along. When we were building the red ball battery in Taipei you told me it was to find the people that could provide the correct antibodies for the power source. Why didn't you tell me that you already knew who the correct person was? Why did you lie to me and tell me that we could use this weapon against Sloane?" Sark paused in his tirade for a moment to regain his composure. 

Irina used the break to interject. "Yes, I knew of one person who could provide the antibody but he was dead. I didn't know that his son would look so much like him. I didn't think he could be the one in the prophecy instead. But I had to make sure, I had to make sure that no one else could produce the correct antibodies. And I did trust you. That's why I send Sydney to the facility to get the antidote. But you took that information and you sold it to Sloane. You thought you could control Sloane like I was supposedly controlling you? Is that why you helped him assemble his arsenal? Is that why you helped him kill millions of people?"

"Millions of people were going to die anyways, at least I helped to limit it a little."

"You killed Jack."

"I saved Jack."

"No you didn't." Irina spat out. "He's dead. Just like everyone else."

"Yes. But like everyone else he was going to die. I did the only thing I could do."

Sark looked at Irina wearily and she returned the tired look. "There's nothing left to be done." Irina stated. "Why show up now? It's over. Let us pick up the pieces of our lives and move on."

"I can't do that Irina because it's not over yet. We are still bound by the fate that has enslaved us all."

"What more do you want Sark?"

Sark leaned on the desk and sat on the edge. "Only that which I never had."

Irina looked at him skeptically and rubbed her forehead to ease the ache that was starting to develop. "It's over Sark. Let it go."

Sark looked at his watch. "It's not over Irina. But it is for you. I put something called Dark Sap in your coffee while you were upstairs. It's a moderately quick acting poison but it is fatal. This is only an approximation but I'm guessing that you have about ten more minutes to live."

Irina stood up quickly knocking her coffee mug to the ground. The mug tumbled and bounced on the carpet spraying the remains of the coffee everywhere, staining the carpet once again. 

Unfortunately her quick ascent caused her head to spin and she had to brace herself against the desk. "…Why Sark?…"

Sark looked at his old boss with a touch of sympathy. "Because though all of you have set the stage, this last part must be played out only by us of the third generation. It must come down to the grandchildren."

"No…" Irina wailed quietly, thought not at her approaching death. "Leave Dawn alone. I beg of you leave her alone!"

Sark hung his head with regret. "Don't worry Irina, she will have the upper hand." 

Sark stood up and walked towards the door. "I will give you a few moments alone. Do what you need to. But you don't have to worry about scarring poor Dawn. There will be no mess to clean up. I made sure that the poison mimics the physiology of a heart attack."

Irina watched Sark close the door and she looked around the room. The thought of dying didn't really scare her, she had been dying a little piece at a time for the last fifty years of her life. And except for the cold sweat that had just broken out on her brow she felt a slight aura of peace. 

She debated what, if anything could be done with her last minutes. She decided against seeing Dawn again. The last thing her granddaughter needed was to see her keel over in front of her. Calling for help was out of the question; she could already feel the poison working its way through her veins. Would it be better for Dawn to think that she died of natural causes or that she was murdered? Irina knew the answer to that and it seemed kind of fitting that she who had carried death's secrets around with her should bring one more with her, to her grave.

But there was one thing she wanted to do. She opened up her journal again and transcribed her last thoughts. Then she pulled out an envelope and slid the journal inside. She sealed the envelope and scribbled an address on the outside.

As she stood up, she could feel a sharp pain travelling up her arm and she couldn't help the small whimper that escaped her mouth. But it wasn't the pain that had made her whimper, it was the fact that she had dropped the envelope. She braced herself against the desk to lean over to pick it up.

Sark must have heard her strangled cry because he reentered the room and shut the door. They stared at each other for a few minutes until Sark finally broke the silence. "Though this was of my own doing, I am trying to make amends in the only way I can--"

Irina tossed the envelope to him. "You want to make amends you bastard, then mail this for me."

Sark looked at the label and nodded. Then Irina clutched at the side of the desk as pain exploded in her chest and Sark removed the small silver flute from his jacket pocket.

***

Dawn sat at her desk filling out the last page of her application. She was signing her name on the form when she heard the quiet sounds of a flute playing somewhere in the house. She paused in confusion, she could not imagine her grandmother picking up any of her instruments even if she had left them lying around. Dawn listened to the notes as they resonated through the house and she was suddenly overcome with sensation. 

It seemed that for as long as she could remember she had searched for a tune that had constantly sounded just outside of her reach. She remembered that when she was younger and she had taken ballet, she had sought to capture the music within her while she danced. She had practiced ballet for years because of this. Finally she had decided that it was the music more than the dance that she craved and so she had begged her father to sign her up for piano lessons. From there she had moved on to wind instruments and then to brass. All the while, she had sought to capture a tune that rang in her head like a forgotten memory.

Dawn sat mesmerized in her chair as she listened to this tune. It was achingly beautiful and parts seemed painfully familiar to her, but she was too caught up in it to question where it was coming from. It was only after the music reached its crescendo and faded off into the quiet did she come about to question where it could be coming from.

As the awareness came back to her, Dawn bolted up from her chair and knocked it over in the process as she raced out of the room. She raced down the stairs, taking two at a time and jumping the last few.

Dawn raced around but it didn't take long for her to cover the main floor until all that was left was the study. Without pausing to think, Dawn raced to her father's old study and threw open the door.

There was a moment of shock as she stared at the motionless body of her grandmother. It was a moment that seemed to last an eternity as the numbness spread throughout her body. She couldn't have told anyone how she made it to her grandmother's side because she had believed that her feet were firmly planted on the ground. Suddenly though, she found herself kneeling at her grandmother's side.

Dawn stared at her grandmother in shock and horror and realized that she didn't know what to do. She touched her grandmother's cheek and it was so very cold that she immediately pulled her hand away. Her grandmother was dead.

Dawn felt panic rising in her chest as she looked around the study. The numbness and panic pushing her sorrow away for the moment as she looked about. Who could help her? Who was she supposed to call? What she was supposed to do? It was only when she realized that she didn't have the answers to any of her questions that she realized for the first time that she was now truly alone in the world.

***

Sark watched from outside the window as Dawn collapsed onto Irina's chest and started sobbing. He had seen the look on her face as she realized that she was alone and he felt his heart twisting within his chest to know that he was in some part responsible for her anguish. His shoulders sagged as he turned around to leave. It was hard to leave her because he knew vividly how she felt, but now was not the time. They would meet soon, to play out the last bit of this legacy, but not yet. He still had things to do.

__

Who knows, 

Not me 

We never lost control 

You're face to face 

With the man who sold the world 


	18. Chapter 16

****

Part 16.

__

A long, long time ago  
I remember how the music used to make me smile  
And I knew if I had my chance  
that I could make those people dance  
and maybe they'd be happy for awhile

Six months later.

Dawn shifted her knapsack so that it sat more comfortably over her right shoulder as she opened the door to the small off-campus café. The aroma of stale smoke and brewed coffee filled her nose as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. It wasn't very crowded today, but her last class had just finished so it was still pretty early. She spotted her friend Amy waving at her from a table in the far corner so she made her way over.

"What took you so long?" Amy asked her friend.

Dawn shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Professor Rantee decided to rant on a little today."

Amy laughed and motioned for Dawn to take a seat. Dawn eagerly dropped her heavy knapsack on the chair and tucked a loose strand of her dirty blonde hair behind her ear. "I need a coffee first, though."

Without much enthusiasm, Dawn maneuvered around the chairs and tables until she got up to the bar. Music twanged in the background and she tried not to wince as the cacophony hit her ears. She sighed. She supposed that in the Artsy cafés, students had to listen to bad poetry from soulful individuals so cafés frequented by Music majors had to listen to music composed by misunderstood students.

Dawn cringed as the girl on stage strummed her guitar. She was unable to stop herself, as the girl seemed to have purposefully tuned her guitar out of tune. It seemed like an eternity before the waitress behind the counter finally handed her her drink. Dawn sipped her coffee in relief and was about to go back and join her friend when she noticed, to her relief, that the performer on the small stage had changed. 

From her vantage point by the bar she could see a young man taking his place on the stage and walking over to the small piano. Though she normally dismissed all the performers without a second thought, this guy seemed to carry himself a little bit differently. With her curiosity peaked, she watched him walk confidently to the piano instead of with the normal apologetic gait that most of the students took on stage. Dawn smiled admiringly. He looked like a guy that was definitely comfortable with his own skin. She liked that. She had only been at school for two months now, but she was already sick of all the false modesty or worse, the unfounded arrogance that her fellow students seemed to display. She had always been taught to evaluate her own performance and to be proud of it if it was well done or to learn from it if it was not. Her grandmother had taught her that. 

Dawn quickly pushed that train of thought away. Though it had been six months, Dawn still missed her grandmother very much. Though school had managed to keep her busy and her mind occupied, the loneliness still managed to find its way up to the surface whenever it could.

She watched him test out the tuning of the piano and once he was satisfied, she watched him glanced around the stage until his eyes landed on hers. It was only a casual glance, made haphazardly before he began to play but it held her attention. Actually, truth be told it did more then hold her attention, but she quickly stopped that direction of thought as well. 

__

After all, no need to be silly, she thought to herself. But she continued to watch from the bar as the guy started to play and she didn't even notice when she sat down on a nearby stool.

The song started off slowly but it quickly built up in intensity and power, which stood in great contrast to the previous guitar song, but it didn't sound overbearing either. There was a quality to it that tugged at her heart. Dawn studied the performer more closely as she listened to his music. 

He was certainly handsome. His short, blonde hair seemed to have a mind of its own but his hands moved confidently across the keys. He wore a dark glove on one hand, which was strange, but certainly no stranger then any of the other getups she had seen performers wear. He looked vaguely familiar but Dawn was positive that she had not seen him perform before. She was sure that she would have remembered if she did.

Too quickly the song ended, and she watched the man nod his head briefly to the crowd, most of which had stopped talking and actually listened to his song, and he casually walked off the stage. Dawn quickly looked down at her coffee to avoid catching his eyes. She didn't understand why she suddenly felt shy but nonetheless she waited a few seconds for him to pass before taking a quick sip of her drink. 

Unfortunately, when she glanced back up, she saw him standing next to her ordering something from the bar. With a nervous jerk, Dawn stood up off the stool but the movement seemed to catch his eye because he turned and looked directly at her.

And his eyes were blue.

Dawn was about to look away when he smiled. "Did you enjoy the song?" he asked.

Dawn managed a small smile of her own. "Very much. It had a very different quality to it than the ones I normally hear in here."

His blue eyes danced with laughter. "You mean it actually had a melody?"

Dawn laughed. "Maybe." She noticed that he had a slight English accent. 

The silence settled once more as he turned away from her to get his drink from the waitress. Dawn felt a slight disappointment that their conversation had ended but she wasn't quite sure how to proceed. As he took a sip from his drink, he was about to turn away from her when she decided to take a chance. "I'm Dawn," she said sticking out her hand.

He turned back towards her with a small smile on his face and looked down at her hand. He shifted his drink to his gloved hand and picked her hand up with his right. Instead of shaking it he turned it so that the back of her hand was facing up. For a brief moment she thought he was going to kiss it like some medieval knight but he merely held it for a moment. 

"Hi Dawn."

Dawn looked at him expectantly but he didn't seem to catch her drift. However, his eyes didn't waver from her. Finally she had to ask. "And you are…?"

He paused a moment before answering. "Very pleased to meet you," he said appearing sincere but still holding onto her hand.

Dawn couldn't help but roll her eyes even as a small laugh escaped her. "No, I mean your name. What do people call you?"

He smiled a crooked smile at her. "People call me many things but most of them are not very favorable."

"Well what should I call you?" Dawn said removing her hand from his and putting it on her hip. 

She watched his eyes laugh as his mouth twisted in a small grin. "You may call me anything you heart desires."

Dawn rolled her eyes again but she couldn't help but laugh. Somehow the lines didn't seem as corny coming from him as they would have from the countless other guys she had met since moving here. The little voice inside her head though tried to tell her that maybe it was because he really didn't seem to want to give her his name, but that didn't make any sense. His eye contact and smiles and the way he had held her hand didn't indicate that he found her repulsive either. Dawn shook her head at him and turned away. She suddenly felt the need to break away from him and go and find her friend.

…

"Amy do you know the name of that guy that was playing the piano a few minutes ago?" Dawn said as she sat down at their table.

Her friend looked at her like she'd grown a third head. "You're only noticing him NOW?" Amy looked at her incredulously.

Dawn shrugged her shoulders. "Sure. Why not?"

Amy pursed her lips together. "Where have you been for the last two months? I was talking about him on the first day of classes!"

Dawn looked at her friend in dismay. "Oh, you already like him?" She could feel the disappointment showing on her face but she tried to smile.

Amy raised her eyebrow and looked at Dawn for a moment before shaking her head sadly. "Naw, don't worry. I'm not his type anyways. But he's the guy that Krysta was after. Don't you remember? That night of the homecoming party?"

Dawn shook her head. "What about it? It was boring. I was stuck listening to some guy for most of the night."

Amy laughed. "Well Krysta The Sorority Girl decided that she would make him feel at home the only way she know how. He didn't even look twice at her. He just said 'No thank-you' in that proper English voice of his. It was hilarious! I don't think anyone's ever turned her down."

Dawn let out a small sigh in relief. "Well, so what's his name?"

Amy looked at her friend knowingly. "David Kurr I think. Why? Did you talk to him?"

Dawn shrugged her shoulders. She wasn't sure if what they had qualified as a conversation but she would have been lying to herself if she said she didn't want the chance to speak to him again.

It took over an hour of chit-chatting with her friend before Dawn gathered up her courage to go find him again. She made the excuse of looking for the washroom to walk around the café but he was nowhere to be seen. Her friend smiled at her in amusement and Dawn would have laughed at herself too for getting so worked up, but the feeling of disappointment at not finding him was too pronounced.

…

A week later Dawn was sitting under a large oak tree outside the music building trying to practice on her flute. The wind kept rattling her papers around so she was forced to find some small stones to lie on the corners. Normally she would have been too self-conscious to practice outside, but she really needed the practice and all the music rooms were booked. She shifted one of the stones that had rolled onto the notes and brought her instrument back up to her mouth.

She was so absorbed in the melody that she didn't even notice that she had acquired an audience until she had finished the song. As she put her flute down she looked to her side and saw David leaning on the tree looking down at her. 

__

So much for trying to be sensible about this, she though ruefully to herself as her heart jumped into her throat. She had thought about him quite a lot throughout the week, regardless of how many times she had tried to stop herself. She knew that the best thing she could do right now was to concentrate on her studies but he kept creeping back into her mind when she was trying to work on her music history paper. Last night, when she finally gave up on the pretense of working she thought about all the things she could say to him, should she happened to run into him again. It appeared that all her practice was pointless though because her mind was drawing a complete blank now.

And to increase her nervousness, he seemed content to just stand there, looking at her.

Finally she managed to repeat his first phrase back to him.

"Did you enjoy the song?"

He smiled at her without missing a beat. "Very much. It had a very different quality to it than the ones I normally hear around here."

Dawn looked down shyly so he crouched down next to her.

"What is your schedule for today?"

She looked up and saw him at her eye level and her nervousness increased. "I…uh…I have a Tonal Composition class in two hours and…" She forgot what else she was going to say. His eyes were bluer than she remembered.

"Come with me?" His voice asked quietly.

Dawn nodded as her heart fluttered in her chest. "Where?"

He smiled and stood up, offering her his good hand. Dawn quickly disassembled her flute and put it in its case before taking his hand and standing up. He grabbed her knapsack that was sitting by the tree with his free hand and swung it over his own shoulder, never letting go of her hand. He looked quickly at his watch. "We have over an hour so I think we have time to walk."

Distracted by the fact that he still held her hand and seemed to have no intention of letting go Dawn forgot about her previous question. She was still shocked that not only had she agreed to go with this man that she hardly knew but that she seemed to like the fact that he was holding her hand. Dawn shook her head at herself.

David saw her shake her head. "What?"

Dawn laughed quietly. "And I used to be such a sensible person."

…

They talked easily throughout their walk and Dawn found out that like her, he was enrolled in the Graduate Music Program. However, his supervisor had his office off the main campus and so David didn't spend as much time in the music building as everyone else. She found out that he too played many instruments and that they shared the same tastes in music styles and even foreign languages. After all, one was able to appreciate the music so much more if the lyrics didn't have to be translated.

She discovered that he had traveled a lot and grown up in Europe, though in England instead of France like her. And though she hadn't traveled much except to and from Boarding School, they still found that they had visited some of the same places. He didn't bring up his family and Dawn didn't bring up hers. 

They walked through Manhattan and it wasn't long before they arrived at the Lincoln Center and Dawn's curiosity got the better of her. David refused to answer any of her questions though, until they reached the north side of the Center and arrived at Avery Fisher Hall.

"This is where the New York Philharmonic plays!" Dawn exclaimed as she took off towards the box office, letting go of David's hand for the first time since he took it when they were back on campus.

As she stared at all the posters and paraphernalia in the box office lobby, David went to the counter and returned. He handed her a ticket.

Dawn looked at him curiously but he didn't have a chance to answer her unasked question before she had turned her ticket over and looked for herself. 

Dawn gasped. "It's a ticket for the Open Rehearsal!" she exclaimed. Before she realized what she was doing, she had thrown her arms around him in a hug.

There was a moment of awkwardness when she released him and realized that her face was inches away from his but he eased the moment by grasping her hand again and leading them towards their seats.

…

"This is it." Dawn said pointing to the small house that she shared with Amy and another girl. The sun had set several hours ago and though not many stars were visible because of the city lights, it was still a beautiful night. They walked up to the veranda and sat down on the stairs.

"Thank-you for a wonderful day." Dawn said after a moment.

David smiled at her. "Thank-you."

Dawn looked down and absently fiddled with the ring on her right hand. David reached across her and held her hand so that he could see the ring.

"That's a beautiful ring," he said admiring the sapphire with the diamonds on either side of it.

"Thanks. My dad gave it to me. It was supposed to belong to my mother but…"

"But?" David asked, watching her intently.

Dawn shrugged her shoulders.

"Your parents love you very much." He said quietly.

Dawn looked at him sharply. "How do you know? They're dead."

David searched her face for a moment, not apologizing for his comment. "I know because you wear their love like an aura around you. I listened to you play your flute earlier and it was beautiful. Only someone who has known lots of love in their life can play like that. It doesn't matter if they are dead. They will always be a part of you."

Dawn felt tears spring up into her eyes and she blinked furiously a few times to try and stop them. She didn't know if she was touched that he had listened to he music so intently or by what he had just said or if she was just emotional because of the nervousness and tension she had been feeling all day while in his presence but she felt like just bawling. But not in a bad way either. She didn't feel like crying because she was lonely or scared, it was almost the opposite. It was just as intense though.

She stared at him for a moment and thought back to when she heard him play last week in the bar. Perhaps he had given her more clues about himself. His music had been beautiful but it had not been peaceful. It had been powerful. But, now as she thought of it, she recognized that it had held undertones of sadness as well.

"And when I heard you play in the café?" she asked him quietly.

David was about to wave away her question when Dawn interrupted him and did it for him. "Never mind. There's no need to make this more complicated than it has to be right?"

David looked at her intently with a questioning look.

Dawn looked away from him unable to hold his searching gaze. "My life has just had so much drama in it, I don't think I can bear anymore right now. Can we just have fun together and enjoy each other's company without worrying about all the baggage we carry around with each other?" 

David nodded slowly but with some hesitancy. "For now."

His answer sent shivers down her spine, but she pushed them aside. Moonlight reflected off of her ring and for some reason she remembered what her father had told her so many years ago. His grandmother had given him this ring and explained to him that though it wasn't a typical engagement ring, he wouldn't love a typical woman so it would suit her completely. The two diamonds were supposed to represent their pasts and the futures but that he couldn't let them determine his love, they would merely help their love to sparkle all the more, like the light the diamonds give to the sapphire. Dawn shivered again and tried to push those thoughts out of her mind.

"You ok?" David asked, concerned. He put his right arm around her to try and ease her shivering.

Dawn moved closer to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. Her gaze rested on his gloved hand and for a brief moment, she had this crazy, irrational urge to find out what had happened to his hand that forced him to keep it covered all the time. But then she stopped herself. She had her own demons and her own ghosts that haunted her. She closed her eyes and just felt his shoulder under her head.

As she concentrated on his touch, she felt her heartbeat speed up and it was like the air around them suddenly became even more charged. She felt him move her head off his shoulder with his hand so she opened her eyes. She found herself staring deep into his eyes. And just when she thought the tension could not have gotten any higher, he leaned in slowly and kissed her. 

…

Some time later, Sark sat on his bed, in the dark and listened to the silence around him. He was trying to meditate. He had been trying to meditate for a little while now, but every time he closed his eyes all he could think about was the feel of her lips on his.

And it was damn distracting.

But this was what he had wanted wasn't it? The opportunity to know love for once in his life? To chase the feeling that he'd had when he'd first held her in his arms, so many years ago and she had smiled at him? To know for once in his life, acceptance, for who he actually was? Wasn't that why he had abandoned everything he had once hoped to accomplish?

But if so, then why did he feel so uncentered? Why did he feel like his entire equilibrium was off? Why did he feel like he was tumbling down a cliff, with no way to stop himself? And behind it all, why did he feel fear? He had never been more honest about himself to any other person. Sure he had let her think that his name was David, but she had come up with that name herself. He hadn't supplied it. He hadn't lied to her at all today. In fact, he had never shared his thoughts so freely with anyone. So where did this fear, deep within his heart come from?

…

Dawn sat on her bed and listened to the silence around her. She felt like she was floating somewhere in space as she replayed their kiss over and over in her mind. It wasn't like she hadn't kissed a guy before, she'd had a few boyfriends over the years but nothing really serious. Certainly nothing that made her head spin like this last day had.

Dawn was about to curl up under the covers when she felt a cool breeze enter her room. She felt like screaming in anger at the intrusion now but for once the voices didn't seem to be directed at her.

"…what are you going to do about this?…"

"…nothing and neither are you…"

"…are you insane?…"

"…will you just go away…"

Dawn opened her eyes, but opened or closed the images were the same. Her father stood in the corner of her room glaring as only the dead could glare at her grandmother that was over by her closet. Dawn would laughed at the craziness if it hadn't been so real. But ghosts were nothing new in her life, they were merely part of the secrets that she had learned to hide so well from anyone not in her messed up family. Her father had made her promise not to say anything because their lived depended on it. Dawn knew the real reason though. If she ever dared to tell anyone the truth about her family, they would lock her up in a mental institution.

And so, like in life, their arguments in death continued. And yet again, she had no idea what they were arguing about.

"…pigheaded…"

"…the only way…"

"…deal with the devil…"

"…you made the devil…"

"Aghhhhhhh!" Dawn closed her eyes and screamed in frustration and the voices stopped jabbering in her head. She opened her eyes to see them staring at her, both with an identical look of worry on their ethereal faces.

"You're making me crazy!" Dawn cried out.

Vaughn looked intently at Irina and the next time Dawn looked around she saw only her father. He looked the same as he did the last time she had seen him though his pain was no longer as pronounced. She wondered briefly why she never saw him with her mother. She had always believed that they would find each other after death and at least they would always be together but she hadn't seen them together yet. Usually she only saw them one at a time and before her father and grandmother had died she had been seeing her mother and grandfather a lot less as the years had progressed.

She looked at her father, but he was looking intently at her. His face was etched with worry and Dawn could not hold her anger against him. She let her shoulders sag as a sigh escaped her throat.

"I don't know why you guys still argue, can't you see that I'm safe here? I've had no problems here, the world is starting to heal. It's been over twenty years since Sloane's acts of terror; it's over now. Can't you guys accept that?"

Her father approached her with a sad look on his face.

Dawn looked down at her quilt. "I'm happy Papa. I really am. I love the school here, I love the city. I'm making some great friends…" she looked back up to see her father looking at her intently. "And I met a really cool guy too Papa. I think you would like him…"

Dawn wasn't sure why it looked like her father was going to cry so she stopped talking.

"…I love you Dawn…" her father whispered in her mind.

"I love you too Papa." Dawn whispered back sincerely, the tears she'd held back earlier, now back in force. Her father stayed a few more minutes before leaving her alone, but the truth of the matter was that she was alone even when he was there. She had learned the hard way, many years ago, that she couldn't hug a ghost.

As she lay back down on her bed, Dawn let the tears fall freely down her face and onto the pillow. She was tired of being alone. She had been alone in some way, for most of her life even before her family had died. Between the fear that her father and grandmother instilled in her, and the weight of all the secrets that she carried, she had learned at an early age to build a wall deep around her. It was easier to not make close friends then it was to lie. Because ironically enough, her father had taught her that lying was bad. And so between the secrets she had to keep and the lies she couldn't permit herself to tell she had built herself a prison that only now she was starting to see.

As the sun peeked its head above the horizon, Dawn wiped her face with the back of her hand and sat up to watch the sunrise. It was her namesake after all. She was emotionally drained and physically exhausted but watching the sunrise had always given her hope and today it was no different. She couldn't blame her family forever, for the chains she helped slip around herself. She could only try and take control of her life one piece at a time.

Dawn forced herself out of her bed and picked up her towel off of the chair. She could just imagine what she looked like from her night of crying. She glance back out of her window and as a sunbeam shined though the trees in her backyard she made a promise to herself to let some more sun back into her own life. She knew it would take some time before she felt comfortable and trusted someone enough to let them completely into her life. But she also knew that she had to start somewhere.

She could start with Amy, but even though she was her best friend, Amy seemed content with the somewhat superficial aspects of their friendship. 

Dawn though back to the night before and paused. She knew that it would take even more time with him because really, she hardly knew him. But perhaps if she was willing to take a chance and if he was willing to be patient with her and if she could gather up her courage, she could find in him what she had always been looking for. And maybe, just maybe, she could know for once in her life, acceptance, for who she actually was.


	19. Chapter 17

A/N: Whew. Sorry for the delay but I have an extra long chapter just to make up for it. When I'm saying extra long though…I'm not kidding. It just sprouted a mind of it's own and it still wanted to keep going. I finally had to put a stop to it, because it was just getting ridiculous! 

  
I need to give a huge thank-you to small4lyfe for betaing this for me and giving me some great suggestions. And I also want to give a big thank-you to you, my readers. Your feedback means a lot to me and I appreciate the time and thought you all put into them. Thank-you all!  
  
So enough babbling on my part. Here are some promised explanations for what is going on…  
  
  
  
**Part 17**  
  
_But February made me shiver__  
with every paper I'd deliver  
bad news on the doorstep  
I couldn't take one more step  
  
  
A few weeks later._  
  
Dawn sighed happily as she drove along the freeway, her window slightly open and the wind rustling through her hair. She whistled absently to herself as the highway before her lulled her into various daydreams. However, there was one memory, formed only several hours ago, that replayed over in her mind the most.  
  
_She gently threw the covers off and tried not to wake David as she tiptoed towards the shower. She had been sure he had been sleeping soundly but he nonetheless peaked at her from behind a half-opened eyelid.__  
  
"I'm gonna go have a shower…I need to get ready to go. They're expecting me today in the afternoon." She said to him whispering, turning back towards him to gently kiss him on the forehead.  
  
David nodded at her sleepily but wrapped his arms around her and brought her back into the bed. He nuzzled her neck and whispered into her ear. "Stay. Stay here. We'll have our own Thanksgiving feast."  
  
Dawn giggled but pulled away. "It's very tempting, but I promised my friend and his family that I would go visit him." She giggled again as he continued to tease her ear.  
  
Reluctantly, she extracted herself from his arms and was about to make her way to the doorway when she turned back at him and saw him watching her intently. "What?" she asked in response to his serious look.  
  
David shook his head but she decided to push the matter. She went over to his side of the bed and sat down next to him. He curled himself around her and played with the drawstrings of her pajama bottoms. There wasn't anything lustful about his motions, but rather he looked almost sad.  
  
"What's wrong David?"  
  
He looked up at her and stared at her face as if trying to memorize it. "Nothing. I just miss you when you're not with me."  
  
She smiled down at him and caressed his cheek. He stopped her hand midway and pressed it against his face. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't mean to be so needy." He replied trying to put a smile on his face.  
  
Dawn laughed lightly at him. She assumed he was mocking her because she felt like she was usually the one who needed him more. Not that he ever seemed to mind. "Hmm…I think I know what's wrong with you." She had replied teasingly.  
  
"And what would that be?"  
  
Dawn smiled coyly. "You must just be falling madly in love with me. That's all." She had meant her words to be teasing but the look on his face indicated that he was seriously considering them.  
  
"Is that what it is?" He had replied. "Is that why I can't sleep unless you're next to me? I toss and turn for hours when you insist on going back to that apartment of yours."  
  
She looked at him seriously. "I don't know, you tell me. I don't want to rush anything between us. Everything has already happened so quickly…"  
  
He interrupted her by planting a kiss on her lips. "Not quick enough, I think." He whispered to her between kisses. She allowed him to sweep her up into his arms and lay her back down on the bed. "Maybe you're right though. Maybe this pounding in my chest when you are around and the ache that replaces it when you are gone, mean only one thing."  
  
"And what would that be?" she asked breathlessly.  
  
David looked solemnly in her eyes before he spoke. "I love you."  
  
She thought she was going to cry because her heart felt like bursting. "I love you too, David."_  
  
Dawn smiled as she thought of that scene over and over again in her head. They had only been seeing each other for three weeks but it already felt like she'd known him all her life. It was not that he didn't have his quirks though. She still didn't know what had happened to his hand. He always kept it covered. She had asked him about it once and he had just said he did not want to talk about it. Dawn shook her head and shrugged. They were both still entitled to their own demons. She herself, had opened up a little, but not much. It would take time before all the barriers came down.   
  
She looked at her watch and allowed herself to get lost in her daydreams again. She still had an hour to go and the freeway was empty.  
  
She allowed thoughts of their lovemaking to enter her mind as she continued to drive. She had been amazed at their chemistry from the beginning but this morning had been different. When he had wrapped her up in his arms and told her that he loved her she had thought she would burst from happiness. This morning had been tender and passionate. It had been like their souls were connecting and becoming a part of each other.  
  
…  
  
Dawn paused after she shifted the car into park. Her body was screaming at her to get out and stretch but she resisted for a moment. Part of her was aching to see Will again but another part of her wanted to put the car into reverse and leave right away. He was the last physical link to her family but she wasn't completely sure if she wouldn't be better off if she just left it behind. Ever since she had started school, it was like she had been transported into a different life. One that wasn't complicated by lies and deceptions, it was just simple and straightforward. For the first time in her life she felt like a normal person and she wasn't quite sure if she was ready to plunge back into the insanity that she had left behind.  
  
A curtain rustling in the window however, soon made the decision for her. The door opened and Will came out to meet her.  
  
"Hi Dawn," he said giving her a big hug.  
  
"Hi Will," Dawn replied embracing him and giving him a small peck on the cheek. "How are you?"  
  
"Good, good." Will looked around quickly. "Please, call me Richard, remember? My wife doesn't know about anything, and I'm sure you can imagine that it's something I don't want to get into now."  
  
Dawn nodded quickly. "Of course, I'm sorry. I forgot."  
  
"So how was the drive down?"  
  
Dawn tried not to blush as Will grabbed her bag from the trunk and motioned her towards the front door. "Good. Traffic wasn't a problem, so I was able to zoom on down."  
  
Dawn was greeted at the door by a petit brunette who offered her her hand. "Hi Dawn, I'm Marissa. I've heard so much about you."  
  
Dawn greeted her warmly and replied in kind.  
  
Marissa led her into the living room, and offered refreshments as they got comfortable. After Dawn had quenched her thirst, Marissa turned to her. "My condolences for your grandmother's passing. I'm so sorry that I couldn't fly over with Richard for the funeral, I just couldn't get the time off work."  
  
"It's ok, I understand. It's nice to finally meet you though. Richard's told me so much about you as well."  
  
They made small talk as Will dropped her things off in the spare bedroom and then returned. She told them about school and described her apartment. She even told a few anecdotes about her professors which had them all laughing. They talked for a few hours before Marissa had to excuse herself to make the final preparations for dinner.  
  
Will turned to her after watching his wife leave the room. He looked at Dawn carefully, smiling at her. "You look so happy Dawn. What's up?"  
  
Dawn shook her head. "Nothing much…well sorta…but...yeah, it's a long story. But I'm happy. Scared but happy."  
  
"Scared? Why are you scared if you're happy?"  
  
Dawn sighed. "Because part of me is never sure if I can trust it. The happiness I mean. Happy times have been so fleeting in the past."  
  
Will looked at her sympathetically. "Then you should appreciate them all the more."  
  
Dawn eyed him skeptically. "Well see that's the problem. I'm never sure if all the sorrow is supposed to make the small amounts of happiness all that more precious or if the brief periods of happiness only make all the sorrow more pronounced. If I let myself be happy now, am I just going to feel that much worse when it's over?"  
  
Will leaned forward and hugged his old friend's daughter. "Be happy Dawn. Please, be happy."  
  
Dawn nodded and tried not to laugh at her melancholy. It appeared that she would never be able to free herself completely from her family. "I just miss them all so much sometimes."  
  
"I know. Me too. I'm surprised to see you here though. At the funeral you told me that you had reconsidered coming here to the States because your grandmother was so adamant against it, and then I get a phone call a few months ago asking me if I would meet you at the airport."  
  
Dawn bit her lip and nodded. "I know. But I couldn't stay in that house by myself. And then I realized that there was no need to hide anymore. My father and grandmother are dead. Does it matter if the FBI catch me? What am I going to tell them, where to find their graves?"  
  
Will's forehead creased with worry. "Does that mean you didn't take any precautions? A new identity? New documents?"  
  
Dawn shook her head. "What was the point? I'm safe. I never did anything wrong."  
  
Will stood up in agitation before sitting back down and making sure to keep his voice low so that his wife didn't hear. "Dawn it's still not completely safe, you know."  
  
Dawn raised her hands in exasperation. "What? What could possibly happen now? Everyone is dead."  
  
Will motioned for her to keep her voice low. "You know that's not true. There are still people out there that would take great pleasure in hurting Michael Vaughn's daughter or Irina Derevko's granddaughter."  
  
"They made sure to keep me out of their business—"  
  
"No, not just their business associates. Look, Sark was never apprehended. You know that. Did your dad ever tell you that a few months after your mom died, he and Irina went back to that university in Switzerland to see if they could uncover anything, and that they found the laboratory empty? Not destroyed, not looted, empty. The rest of the offices and such were as they had seen them when we were all last there. Sark must have gone back and collected all the Rambaldi artifacts."  
  
"Yeah, but no one's heard a peep from him in over twenty years. Maybe he crawled into a hole and died too."  
  
Will stood up again and started to pace. Dare he share with her the contents of Irina's journal? Her journal hadn't told him much, it merely detailed their lives over the course of the last twenty years but her last entry had been cryptic and not very clear. Well the meaning had been clear, but why she had written it and then thought to mail it to him before she died he didn't know. Unless she knew she was going to die. But these thoughts were not new to him. These thoughts had plagued him since he had received her journal eight months ago.  
  
_Protect her against Sark_, was all that was scrawled on the last page.  
  
Will shook his head. How was he supposed to do that?  
  
"I don't think he's dead Dawn." Will whispered quietly to her. "He's too cunning to be dead. You have to remember that your grandmother trained him for years. He'll resurface." Will couldn't stop his mouth from turning into a snarl. "I just know he will."  
  
Dawn looked at him curiously. "You really hate him don't you. I mean more than Sloane or whatever his name was."  
  
Will looked at her intently and sat back down. "He took everything away from me. He destroyed my life."  
  
"But you look like you're doing pretty good for yourself now. You look happy." Dawn replied. However she almost bit her lip when she looked in Will's eyes. For a happy man, they managed to be quite haunted.  
  
Will couldn't hold the eye contact for long. "You have to understand that he's a wild card. He's unpredictable. With Sloane at least we knew what he wanted. Sloane wanted power. He wanted to bring his wife back to life. But nobody knows what Sark wants. His family didn't even give him a name! He worked with your grandmother to destroy Rambaldi's works. Then he switched sides and helped Sloane kill millions of people. I know it must be hard for you to imagine, but twenty years ago, things were very different here. You can still see some side effects sometimes, but you have to look harder for them. Then he helped Vaughn find your mother but he kidnapped you. Then he killed your mother. What more do you need to know?"  
  
"He didn't kill my mother. She died because she got pulled into the device with Sloane."  
  
Will looked at Dawn but didn't question how she could state that with such certainly. "Well he certainly didn't help her and I saw him standing there behind her playing on that damn flute of his."  
  
"Flute?" Dawn asked curiously, but Will only shook his head to indicate that he didn't know any more.  
  
Something tugged at Dawn's memory but it was fleeting and she couldn't grasp it long enough to make any sense of it.  
  
Will stood up and began to pace in his living room, unable to contain his agitation. Dawn looked at him intently, scared that even after all these years he could hold such animosity in his heart.  
  
"Will, please let this go. It's done. It's over. It was over twenty years ago."  
  
Will shook his head and flinched slightly at her mistake. "No, I don't think it will ever be over Dawn. That damn little Brit is like a weed. He'll pop up when we least expect him." Will sat back down again and tried to force himself to speak in a hushed tone. "You know the only satisfaction I have is that I actually managed to shoot the little bastard the last time I saw him. You should have seen the look on his face. I don't think he expected that I'd be able to harm him in any way."  
  
"Oh, I didn't know that. If you shot him, maybe he did die. Maybe you killed him."  
  
Will shook his head sadly. "No, unfortunately I'm not that good of a shot. I think I only hit him on the hand…but I think I got him square on it."  
  
_…I only hit him on the hand…_Dawn shook her head to clear her thoughts but Will's voice kept resonating through it._ …on the hand…damn little Brit…playing on that flute of his… his family didn't even give him a name…__  
  
People call me many things but most of them are not very favorable…Well what should I call you? …call me anything you heart desires… Your parents love you very much… How do you know? They're dead…_  
  
Dawn had ceased to listen to Will's rant and mumbling because her mind was whirling insanely. She felt like her heart had just bottomed out from under her.  
  
_No, no, no, no, no…_were the only thoughts that echoed over and over in her brain.  
  
"Dawn, where are you going?" Will's voice cut through her disheveled thoughts. It was only then that she realized she had stood and picked up her purse off the couch she had laid it on earlier.  
  
"I…I have to go…I'm sorry Will…", _No, no, no, no, no…_  
  
"But what about dinner? You just got here!"  
  
"I'm sorry…" Dawn mumbled half incoherently as she walked towards the front closet to get her coat. She had stopped thinking about anything logically; she didn't even wait for Will to return with her bags. She mumbled more apologies as Marissa came to see what was going on but she would have been hard pressed to remember any of it a few minutes later.  
  
_No, no, no, no, no,_ was all that echoed through her mind.  
  
She felt her entire world hanging by a precipice now and there was only one thing she could concentrate on. She had to go back. She had to find him. She had to find out the truth.   
  
Now.   
  
For once and for all.

Dawn wasn't sure what speed she drove at but she took an hour off of a drive that normally took her three and a half hours. She didn't think much during the trip, or at least she tried not to. Her mind had stopped its constant denial but now too many questions kept popping up into her head and her heart kept threatening to break over and over again, until she forced her mind blank. She didn't stop for washroom break, she didn't stop for gas. There was only one destination in her mind and she wasn't going to let anything get in her way or slow her down.  
  
The sun had set several hours ago by the time she screeched the tires as she pulled up in front of David's apartment complex.   
  
When she found herself in front of his door though she paused for the first time, the enormity of the situation weighing heavily upon her shoulders. Her day had come full circle and now she found herself where she had begun it. That it mimicked her life was not lost on her. She had left this morning feeling free of the bonds that had tied her all her life only to come back now, to perhaps have them slipped upon her tighter than ever.  
  
_Do I really need to know the truth?_ she asked herself. There was a slight possibility that maybe, just maybe, everything was just a coincidence and David would think her crazy if she barged in demanding answers to insane questions. Questions like did he kidnap her when she was a baby or was he responsible for her mother's death? Crazy questions that had seemed normal to ask while she was driving over but that raised questions of her sanity while standing in front of a wooden door. A normal, sane wooden door, behind which was likely her sane, normal, completely non-psychotic boyfriend.  
  
Dawn took a deep breath and forced herself to knock on the door. As she waited, she briefly hoped that he wasn't home and she could put off this crazy nonsense awhile longer. But as she was about to knock once again, the door opened.   
  
David looked at her surprised, his hair sticking up slightly. His attire suggested that he had been at least getting ready for bed. "Dawn, I thought you weren't coming back until the day after tomorrow?"  
  
Dawn forced her way past him and into his small apartment. David followed her to his couch and watched as she sat down. "Is everything ok Dawn?" he asked her seriously.  
  
She studied his face intently for a moment. It briefly occurred to her that she could be risking her life confronting him if he was who she feared he might be but then all she had to do was look in his face. He was still the same David that laughed with her. He looked like the same person that only eight hours ago had confessed that he loved her.  
  
Could she have been so completely fooled?  
  
He saw the look on her face and sat down next to her.  
  
Dawn noticed that he wore no glove or any other covering on his left hand but he kept it half hidden from sight.  
  
"David, can I see your hand?" Dawn asked reaching for his arm.  
  
He moved off the couch like she had burned him. "No," came his simple answer, spelling out his guilt to her with that one syllable.  
  
Dawn got up off the couch and followed him. "Who are you?" she whispered to him trying to fight back the tears.  
  
David looked at her solemnly "You know who I am better than anyone else. I have never lied to you."  
  
"Then what's your name?"  
  
David turned away from her.  
  
"What's your name?!" Dawn asked almost shouting this time, the tears starting to flow down her face.   
  
Dawn moved herself in front of him so that she could see his face. He saw her jaw set and turned away again. "Don't expect me to help you crucify me."  
  
Dawn felt the tension escalate but she couldn't stop now. She had passed the point of no return. She saw that his hands hung loosely at his slide and before she could second guess herself, she grabbed his left hand and spun him around. She had expected some resistance but she found none as she lifted his hand up for her to see.  
  
His left hand was very pale from never seeing the sun, but it also bore severe scarring. And though it was slightly grotesque to look at, the scarring told that his hand had once had a small hole through the centre of it. As she turned it around she saw that the hole was slightly larger on the other side. It had been from a gunshot and she was now holding the hand of a killer.  
  
She dropped his hand and backed away, all the while her mind screaming out denials again.  
  
_No, no, no, no, no, no, no…_  
  
"Dawn"  
  
_No, no, no, no, no, no, no…_  
  
"Dawn!"  
  
"No!" she screamed out loud.  
  
"Please let me explain."  
  
Dawn moved to back away again but she was already up against the wall. "You're Sark." She said painfully.  
  
"I never lied to you Dawn. It would have been impossible for me to give you my name, though I desperately wished I could have. But I don't have one. I merely let you do what everyone else has done. Gather information about me from sources other than myself. Everyone has done it all my life. People have sentenced me for many reasons, some for actions I have committed but many times for actions I have not."  
  
"What do you want from me?"   
  
"I want you to listen to me."  
  
"You killed my mother."  
  
"I did not and you know that. I saved her. You just don't understand how."  
  
"You killed all those people…"  
  
"Will you listen to me?"  
  
Dawn looked down exhausted and more than slightly dazed and Sark moved closer to her. He took her silence as acquiescence and led her back to the couch. He motioned for her to sit down but she looked back up at him defiantly.  
  
"I swear to you I will not hurt you."  
  
"You already have."  
  
"Please sit."  
  
Dawn finally sat down on the couch as Sark sat down next to her. He was careful not to touch her but his knee accidentally grazed hers. She saw him stare at his knee and the look on his face suggested great pain.   
  
The silence weighed heavily on them until finally Sark sat forward. "There is much I can tell you if you are willing to listen."  
  
He let his question hang in the air as Dawn studied him. For some reason she could not superimpose the image that Will had painted in her head of him over top of the actual man. Will's Sark was one dimensional; a cold, calculating bastard, but the man in front of her was not just that. Oh she could see the power in him. She could see that he was not a man that was scared of anything. He could be in complete control of his actions. She could see the intelligence and cunning in his eyes. She could imagine him compartmentalizing his thoughts so that he could do whatever actions he needed to. After all she had seen her father do the same thing.   
  
Her father had been the most loving man she had ever known but she had seen him dealing with his business associates on occasion. Though she had been kept out of all his business dealings, the odd one would happen when she was around. She had seen that cold, hard look in her father's eyes when he had casually demanded results from troublesome associates. The look must have worked because he always seemed to get results. Her father had shown her that one man could be kind and compassionate, cold and calculating and sad and incomplete. Was it inconceivable that this man in front of her now, could not be all those as well? Had she not seen the same hint of sadness within him when she had listened to his music? But could his sadness excuse all the horrible things he had done?  
  
"I don't know how much history Irina told you about myself--"  
  
"She didn't. She never spoke of you. My father is the one that told me the whole story. Him and Will are the only ones that would sometimes speak of it."  
  
"Tippin?" Sark asked confused. And then he understood. Of course. Richard. The man to whom he mailed Irina's envelope. The man who had obviously given Dawn enough hints to guess his identify. It figured that the one player he had dismissed as being superfluous was the very one to bring his world crashing down upon him. Twice. After all, he was the one that marked him in the first place.   
  
Sark shook his head to clear his thoughts. After all it no longer mattered how they had arrived at this stage. The point was merely that now they were here. He waited for Dawn to elaborate.  
  
"My father did not say much just that you were Rambaldi's grandson. He said that my grandmother rescued you from your family and in return you agreed to work with her to destroy Rambaldi's works. Then when my grandmother turned herself in, you switched sides and went to work for Sloane. You kidnapped my mother and then held the world for ransom to get what you wanted. Then you helped my father find my mother but you didn't tell him about me. You let Sloane take me away from my mother. When my father rescued mom, she told him about me and then they went in search to find me. My father told me that when my mother died you did nothing to help her. You just stood behind her played on the flute. Will thinks that's what killed her."  
  
Sark nodded absentmindedly at the brief summary. "Please believe me, but I did not kill Sydney."  
  
"My father told me that you had a crush on her." Dawn's face scrunched up in disbelief and pain.  
  
Sark sighed and wondered when his life had become so complicated. Events that happened over twenty years ago still had the power to turn his world upside down. And he wondered if there was any point in trying to explain. But then he hadn't come this far, just to lose without a fight. "Irina taught me to control my emotions and how to focus on the task at hand. She trained me to charm the ladies when the situations called for it and not to get emotionally involved. To be quite honest, it was never that hard. At the time, I don't think I had ever been emotionally attached to anyone and the notion actually seemed quite absurd to me. You have to understand things that I'm only starting to understand now. But my family never really fostered in me any feelings of love or affection. I've read all the classics though, and I knew that it was possible for people to care about each other. Before I met Irina though, I thought it was a bizarre notion. She showed me that it was in fact a foolish notion. It was a weakness that could be exploited in people."  
  
Dawn shifted uncomfortably at the mention of her grandmother. Though she had always been loving towards her granddaughter, Dawn could imagine that what Sark was telling her was true. Because above all, she had seen that her grandmother almost always got what she wanted. Her father had been the only one that she seemed reluctant to manipulate. Dawn shook her head and waited for Sark to continue though part of her mind was wondering if that was the very weakness that he had exploited in her.  
  
"When I met Sydney, I knew she was Irina's daughter and that made her an interesting subject to analyze. Your mother was like her in so many ways, and yet fundamentally different as well. Sydney fascinated me. I suppose in some ways I imagined that I fancied her. She was strong and intelligent and for the first time in my life I had found someone, a woman no less, who was my equal. I admired her and I wanted her to admire me. Needless to say, I failed miserably in that regard."  
  
Dawn opened her mouth to interrupt but Sark raised his hand to stop her. "Wait. Let me finish. You were born early because of what I did. I went to visit your mother in her cell and she threw her contempt for me in my face. I lost my temper and struck her. Your delivery followed soon after that. Please, know that for the very first time in my life, I regretted my actions. I regretted losing my temper so I did the only thing I could at the time. I planned for a way to set her free but it involved using you. At the time, I thought it the lesser of two evils. So I set my plan in motion. I told your father where to find Sydney and he rescued her."  
  
"And me? How did I fit into your master plan?"  
  
"Master plan?" Sark laughed sadly. "No, no master plan, not really. My motivation to see my grandfather's works destroyed has never wavered but do you understand why I want to destroy them? Do you really understand?"  
  
Dawn shook her head. "Because of what he was trying to build?"  
  
Now it was Sark's turn to shake his head. "No. Really, I could care less about his grand scheme and how all his little inventions fit together."  
  
"The why?"  
  
"Revenge. He took my life away from me with his damn prophecy. My family life would have been less than ideal to being with…they stole decades from me, keeping me locked in a room…My own mother thought I was the devil incarnate."  
  
Dawn felt a flash of pity at the broken man in front of her but she stopped herself from reaching out to him. She knew he wasn't finished yet. "So what does that have to do with me? You stole back all his pieces. It's over now isn't it?"  
  
Sark looked at her. "Almost."  
  
He paused a moment before continuing. "Working with Irina I came to learn two things about her. The first one was obvious and it was that she hated Sloane. She hated him with passion. The second thing I learned was from asking myself why she hated him. And the reason stemmed from the fact that she loved Jack and her family. She loved them with an intensity equal to that with which she hated Sloane. I was quite amused when I learned that, for all the times she was telling me not to become emotionally attached, she was quite the hypocrite. But when I asked her about it the only thing she said was that everyone needed something good in their lives. If your motivation was only based on negative reasons then you were no better than the people you were trying to beat."  
  
"And she was right you know. My only motivation for existing was revenge. So what would happen to me when I had exacted it? I didn't find a solution to my problem until after I started working for Sloane. Sloane was looking to unlock the key to Rambaldi's works. Emily was dying from cancer and he wanted to make her better. Don't get me wrong, it was more than that too, I think. Mostly Emily was just an excuse. But one of the components to his new master plan was The Flute. Using the flute, one could control life and even death."  
  
Dawn wrinkled her forehead in confusion. "You have this flute. Will told me about it and my father did as well. This is the flute that needed my father's blood to work."  
  
"You are partially correct. I didn't know it until then, but the Flute had been in my family's possession all along. I merely had to go back there and retrieve it. But let me explain what it does first, and then maybe this will make more sense. Every particle in the universe, electrons, protons, atoms, each has a certain amount of energy within them. This energy is defined by the particle's vibration. Every particle will vibrate with a slightly different frequency. This frequency is a characteristic of the particle. Follow me so far?"  
  
Dawn nodded slowly.  
  
"Well frequency can also be thought of as a wave pattern. Ups and downs. Now if you apply another wave pattern to an existing wave pattern, the two will merge together. If the waves have the same frequency and are in phase with each other, the resulting wave will be twice as big, like they were simply added together. If however, the waves are shifted 180 degrees, then they will cancel each other out. You know this from music and how acoustics work."  
  
Dawn nodded again.  
  
"Well the Flute is designed to play waves that interact with us in the most intimate of ways. Though our souls."  
  
"What?" Dawn exclaimed incredulously.  
  
"Our souls are tangible things are they not? Well they are made up of particles so to speak and these particles contain energy. So each particle can be manipulated by the addition of another wave thereby in effect manipulating the soul as a whole."  
  
"And when you were playing the flute behind my mother…?"  
  
"I was connecting her soul to the Flute. Once a soul leaves its body I cannot find it again. From what I understand the soul's particles increase to fit the space that they occupy. With no body, the soul expands indefinitely becoming one with the surroundings. I stopped that from happening and linked her soul to the Flute."  
  
"She's in the Flute?"  
  
"Well imagine it more like a leash. It tethers her soul to it so she does not dissipate. Have you ever seen her as a ghost?"  
  
Dawn nodded slowly, still in shock at what she was learning.  
  
"The Flute allows her to visit people that she has a strong bond with but it's all about energy. Everything is about energy. Her energy is getting weaker. That is why she hasn't been able to visit you more. Each soul only retains so much energy from the body it was parted from. Over time, each of them will lose energy and be able to travel less distance from their leash."  
  
"Each of them?" Dawn asked confused for a moment but then she understood. "Of course. You have my dad and grandmother as well? "  
  
Sark nodded. "Your grandfather was well, that's how this started. Sloane knew that if anyone was smart enough to stop him it was Jack. So he set a plan in motion to kill him. Jack was going to die. I did the only thing I could at the time."  
  
"You were there when they died?" Dawn asked trying to understand the implications that she couldn't quite comprehend.  
  
Sark looked down. "Yes.  
  
"Why? Why did you start all this?"  
  
Sark kept his eyes down ashamed. "At first I did it so that I could have some hold over Irina if I ever met her again. I thought she had betrayed me."  
  
Dawn swallowed uncomfortably as, the implications of that became clear. "And after?"  
  
Sark continued reluctantly. "After dealing with your mother during her captivity…I…I decided I wanted to learn what the big fuss was about. She loved your father so very much. That was twice that I had seen such love and both times it was from women I thought should have known better. I figured it could not be coincidence. Then in the laboratory, I came upon her suddenly and she caught me off guard. By the time I recovered, it was already almost too late. I started playing before I could think twice."  
  
Dawn let the silence fall as she tried to absorb everything that was being told to her. Everything was madness but it seemed to make a strange form of sense. She had thought that the ghosts in her life were just her own form of insanity, but maybe this was worse. Maybe believing all this was more insane. But perhaps the scariest thing of all was that she knew it wasn't over yet.  
  
"Where do I fit in to all of this? What do you want with me?" she asked when she had finally summoned the last of her courage.  
  
Sark sighed and rubbed his eyes. And so they arrived at the crux of the matter and he was suddenly at a loss for words. He looked at the clock on the wall and noticed that it was well into the wee hours of the morning. "Are you sure you want to continue this now?"  
  
Dawn set her jaw angrily. "Yes. No more half-lies or omitting information, I want to know everything. I want to know the truth, now."  
  
"You've known part of the truth all along. The truth of the matter is that for the first time in my life, I know love. I thought I loved Sydney but I was wrong. I know I love you. I look at you and my heart constricts, I see the hurt in your eyes and I feel physically ill. You have made me question my very foundations for the first time in my life. The entire truth of the matter is that I also need you to help me with something else, but I think it is something that you will agree to. As for anything else that I have omitted, you will probably find it all out if you decide to help me."  
  
"Help you with what?" Dawn asked cautiously.  
  
Sark looked at her cautiously. "The last step. And then, after this I can destroy everything. I want you to bind your mother and father and your grandmother and grandfather's souls together."


	20. Cahpter 18a

I'm really sorry about the huge delay for this update. What can I say? I think I was just suffering from Almost Finished Fic Syndrome. (You can check out my rant on my LiveJournal if you're so inclined. My username is lunasky. I'd just put in the web address but doing that seems to put story into a formatting nightmare for some reason. *shrugs*)

I just want to give S4L a big thanks for looking this over for me and pestering me every few weeks to remind me that people are still reading this.

Part 18b is already in the works so no more 10 week delay in updates, I promise!

So, here we go! (Don't forget to leave some feedback…it really makes my day!)

**Part 18a**  
  
_Did you write the book of love,  
and do you have faith in God above,  
Because the Bible tells you so?  
And do you believe in Rock and Roll,  
can music save your mortal soul?  
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?_  
  
  
  
Dawn pursed her lips together angrily. "You want me to do what?"   
  
Sark stood up and started to pace around his living room giving her time to digest all that he had told her. Finally he turned back around towards her, his face earnest. "Don't you think that that is what they always wanted? I know that you never knew your grandfather, but you have to know that Irina loved him very much. Didn't it ever seem to you that something critical was missing in her life? The same with your father? There were too many reasons why they could never be together in life, shouldn't we give them that peace now, when those reasons no longer matter?"  
  
Dawn stood up, unable to hold Sark's glance and walked over to a window; her anger dying slightly because she couldn't deny his words. She knew they were true. She remembered well the haunted look in her father's eyes when he was thinking of her mother. And to a lesser extent she had seen a bitter look of loneliness often in her grandmother's face as well. Could the pinnacle of a quest spanning three generations be resolved so simply?  
  
"Why me? You need my father's blood, not mine." Dawn was surprised at how hollow her voice sounded.  
  
Sark waited until she turned to face him again. "True. I don't need you for your blood. Your mother stole some of your father's blood, the night that they rescued you. Because your father had already been exposed to the virus and then the antidote, his blood already contained the antibodies that the Flute requires. I stored the antibodies and still have them. I think you can use them. Because of your familial relationship, your body shouldn't reject and destroy them. They will supply the power that the Flute needs."  
  
Dawn looked away, again.   
  
It all sounded too simple.  
  
Sark was a killer. She knew that. Her father had always told her how ruthless he was. And she now knew first hand. He had betrayed her. He had tricked her. He had made her fall in love with him.  
  
She looked back into his face, expecting to see the monster that he was, but all she saw was sadness. And she had to force herself to remember that he had lied to her, even if it was only through omissions.   
  
But he claimed that he had actually never spoken a lie to her. How could that be true? How could he be all that she knew he must be, and yet still claim to love her?  
  
Dawn suddenly felt very tired. Her head hurt from thinking and her heart felt heavy in her chest. All she wanted to do was to lie down and give up, even for just a moment. She just wanted a simple moment, where everything wasn't so complicated.  
  
But the silence was weighing down heavy in the air around them.  
  
Dawn suddenly wondered what would happen if she did what he asked? Would Sark then destroy all the Rambaldi artifacts and then her and her family would be free forever? Would all this actually be over then?  
  
Could it actually be that simple?  
  
Would it actually be such a difficult thing to do?  
  
Maybe this whole drama just had to be played out to completion, and then it would be over. There would be nothing left to do. She could bind her family together and give then the peace that they needed and at the same time, give herself peace as well. No more running away. No more hiding. No more lying.  
  
Just peace.  
  
"Fine." Dawn replied quietly, feeling empty inside. "What do I have to do?"  
  
She turned back to Sark, expecting to see his triumphant gaze but instead he looked just as hollow as she felt. And Dawn wondered briefly why this moment didn't hold the happiness that the final victory should for him.  
  
…  
  
Sark opened the door for her and let her slide into the passenger side of his car. She had not spoken to him much since he had outlined to procedure that would have to happen but rather she had pursed her lips tightly together and followed him out the door.   
  
For hours Sark drove through the night and they sat in silence. Dawn watched the scenery change as they drove along the coast, crossing over state lines until they ended up in Maine. And still he drove. Dawn saw the signs pointing to Baxter State Park. In the distance she could see the sun starting to rise over the Appalachian Mountains.  
  
After half an hour, the road began to deteriorate and Dawn saw Mount Katahdin. After some time, they turned off the main road and followed a private road, higher up the mountain. There were no other people in sight but given the early hour of the morning and their remote location it didn't come as too big of a surprise.  
  
"Everything you need is here?" Dawn asked skeptically, turning to him.  
  
Sark nodded. "Yes. But don't worry. I have the very best people at my call. You will be safe."  
  
Dawn tried to ignore his concern and merely looked back out the window. She didn't care too much about her safety any longer. She was just tired. She wanted everything to finally be over.  
  
Finally, Sark pulled over to a small clearing and got out. She didn't wait for him to open the door for her.  
  
As she looked at the small clearing that they were in, she noticed that the mountain still went up a ways, but that the bush was becoming sparser. This clearing was the last good place to camouflage the car. She watched as Sark followed a small trail up the mountain before deciding to follow him.  
  
It didn't take them long to reach his hideout.  
  
A large metal door was built into the side of the mountain, where vehicles could drive in. Sark opened up a smaller door cut inside of the larger one and held it open for her. A guard stood on duty inside and he greeted Sark when they came in.  
  
Sark turned to Dawn. "Let me show you around."  
  
Dawn stopped him by standing firmly in place. "Don't bother," she replied. "Let's just get on with it. We've waited long enough."  
  
"Fine," Sark replied, giving up and turning to the guard. "Radio Dr. Wester and ask him to come here at once."  
  
The guard nodded and complied.  
  
…  
  
_That afternoon_…  
  
  
Sark sat in his office, deep within his hideout, staring transfixed at a nondescript spot on the wall. A sharp knock brought him out of his reverie.  
  
"Yes?" Sark answered sharply.  
  
A large burly man opened the door and came inside. He gave Sark a short nod in greeting. "Mr. Sark."  
  
"Hello, Andres. I assume everything was kept in order while I was away?"  
  
Andres nodded. "Yes, Mr. Sark. But there were a few minor problems. I dealt with them appropriately but I still thought you might want to know about them."  
  
Sark nodded and motioned for the man to sit down.  
  
"I had a problem with a few of the men. They had talked to some of the older men and gotten some ideas in their head about the possibilities of Rambaldi's works. It seems they weren't content with just the immortality of youth. I caught them tinkering around with some of the devices so I made an example out of them, but I'm still a little worried. You employ over two hundred people here; their restlessness for results may have spread to others."  
  
"Is the arsenal ok?"  
  
Andres nodded. "Yes. Your most trusted people work there, maintaining the warheads. But I've seen the girl. If she's able to do take her father's blood and use it, then you won't need the energy provided by the nuclear chambers, correct?"  
  
"Correct. But only if the surgery is successful and if her body can use her father's antibodies. That's a lot of ifs. But regardless, I can't afford to have men working for me without something that doesn't ensure their loyalty." Sark opened up his locked safe and pulled out a small radio receiver, no bigger than a quarter. He also took off his watch and snapped the radio receiver into the underside of his watch. A small beep echoed throughout the room, indicating that he had activated it.  
  
"You can let it be known that I am wearing the biometric activator for the warheads. If these fools get any ideas into their thick skulls about pulling any stunts, they should be reminded that if my pulse stops, then theirs will as well. We are sitting on a 200 kiloton nuclear weapon. They'd best be remembering that."  
  
Andres nodded. "Oh, one more thing. I just found out that one of the men deserted, a few hours after you arrived."  
  
Sark raised his eyebrow. "Who?"  
  
"Michiel Reiger. He's an old one. He was left over from your partnership with Sloane."  
  
"Have we ever had any problems with him before?"  
  
Andres shook his head. "No. That's why you decided to keep him. He always did what he was told, with no complaints."  
  
Sark shook his head. "That's strange. So why did he leave today?"  
  
Andres shrugged. "I don't know. But apparently it was after he saw the girl."  
  
Sark clenched his mouth shut angrily. "Did he leave with anything?"  
  
"I don't know. I've already started some men on taking inventory. But with over four hundred pieces in storage…it will take some time before we know."  
  
"Well you have two hours. By then Dawn will be out of surgery and recovering. We will want to start right away. I need to know if this man took off with anything of mine."  
  
Andres nodded and stood up.  
  
Sark watched as he left the office. As the door shut behind him, Sark allowed his fist to clench as he slammed it on his desk. _We have come so close…he thought. It's almost all over. I hope this damn fool hasn't stolen anything! I have more important things to be doing than chasing down all these artifacts again._  
  
…  
  
_An hour later..._  
  
  
Dawn forced her eyelids open though they still felt heavy. Her throat was dry and ached horribly but as she moved her head to look around, Sark came into her view.  
  
"Relax Dawn, everything is fine. It's done. The flute is yours now. Relax and sleep. The anesthetics will still take a few hours to wear off completely. Sleep now."  
  
Dawn let her eyelids close as she moved her right hand up to her throat, but it was swathed in bandages. She felt Sark take up her hand and hold it gently as unconsciousness claimed her again.  
  
…  
  
_Several hours later..._  
  
Dawn opened her eyes again. The lights were dim in the room but she could make out David's slumbering form in the armchair next to her bed. He looked so peaceful sleeping that she was almost able to forget exactly why they were here.   
  
She tried to swallow but her throat felt raw and dry, though she was not in as much pain as she thought she would be. Not considering that Dr. Wester had just implanted the Flute into her throat.  
  
It was a part of her now. The power of Rambaldi was inside of her.  
  
She shivered slightly despite the warm blankets overtop of her and it caused Sark to stir. She watched him wake up and she was surprised when the veil of innocence didn't entirely lift from his face. He looked down at her with concern.  
  
"Here, your throat is probably dry, try drinking some water," he helped her sit up and then handed her a small glass.  
  
Dawn tried to sip but the liquid burned her throat and she started coughing. She felt his hands on her back trying to soothe her past her coughing fit until it subsided.  
  
"Ok, well that won't work, I suppose. Let me give you an IV. It will help you feel less thirsty in the mean time. I really want you to sleep for the rest of the day. I know you wanted to start right away, but we can start tomorrow. I'm not going anywhere. We can easily wait another day." Dawn watched as Sark gently inserted the IV into her arm and taped the needle in place. He then picked up her hand and patted it gently.  
  
They sat there for a few minutes in the silence, with him holding her hand.  
  
"I love you Dawn," his said finally, his voice quiet.  
  
Dawn looked away to hide the tears that were starting to form in her eyes. It took her a moment to compose herself and then she turned back. She looked at the sadness in his face and she didn't doubt his words.   
  
She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice cracked and it caused her throat to ache again. Sark motioned for her to be quiet but she tried again, whispering this time. "Why did you do all this? Why couldn't you have just asked for my help, in the first place?"  
  
She was surprised at how loud her words sounded in the room, but then compared to the silence that followed, the heart beating in her chest sounded loud.   
  
Sark looked down for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "Because it wasn't just about getting your help. I swear." His voice was equally as soft.  
  
For a moment Dawn thought that she could forgive him, but that moment passes when he continued, his voice becoming slightly harder. "But even if it was, would you have helped me? Honestly? Would you have helped me if you had known everything about me?"  
  
Dawn bit her lip angrily and forced the words out of her aching throat. "You damn the world because they never gave you a chance, but you never gave me a chance either. I might have helped you regardless. I might still have loved you, even knowing who you are. But now I can't. Now you're just another person that I can't trust."  
  
She saw his eyes darken as he stood up and he placed her hand back on the bed. "Then just rest for now, and we'll start first thing in the morning. Then you will be free of me forever, I promise."  
  
He turned quickly and left the room before she had time to say anything more.  
  
As Dawn lay in the darkness, she realized that the IV was helping because she didn't feel as thirsty as she did before. But as she looked around the room, a wave of loneliness hit her, bringing the tears back into her eyes.  
  
She tried to tell herself that she was lonely for her family and that's why she was doing what she was doing. That's why she was lying on this bed, in a room built into the side of a mountain, and crying. She was crying because she missed them. And not because of the hurt look on one man's face.  
  
In fact, she tried very hard to ignore the possibility that the tears streaking down her face were in fact for the man that had just left her. Because she couldn't still love him, with everything he had done. It just wasn't possible. Was it not?  
  
…  
  
Sark slammed the door to his office shut; the sound reverberating around him. She had every right to hate him, he understood that, but it didn't make the dull pain in his chest any easier to bear.   
  
He sat down at his desk and pulled the bottom drawer open so fast that he almost pulled the drawer all the way out. But at least it made reaching for the bottle of scotch at the back, that much easier.  
  
He looked around for a small glass to pour himself a drink with but he didn't see one anywhere and he wasn't in the mood to go looking for it. So he merely opened the bottle and drank straight from it.  
  
And then he remembered why he hated scotch. He hated it because it felt like fire going down his throat and it was bitter and vile and he had always been under the assumption that nobody really liked scotch anyway, they just liked to pretend that they did. That was why he kept a bottle here in his office. So that he could offer it to the people he disliked that had occasion to visit him. It was really just an excuse to feed them poison under the pretension of looking polite.  
  
But he took another drink and slammed the bottle down on the desk.  
  
A knock on the door caused him to take out his pistol but Andres looked unperturbed as opened the door to see it aimed at him.  
  
Sark contemplated shooting him briefly, but he realized that Andres was one of the few people that he trusted marginally and he had information that he currently needed.  
  
"Is the inventory complete?"  
  
Andres shook his head. "No, sir. In fact, we discovered that large parts of the storage room have been trashed making the work harder. But I think that it's likely that he was looking for something. I have people cleaning it up right now and sorting through everything."  
  
Sark picked up the bottle and threw it against the wall. The bottle shattered, spraying the brown liquid everywhere.  
  
"I hate scotch."  
  
"I know, sir."  
  
Andres stood up. "I will have a bottle of '99 Lafleur sent up to your room?"  
  
Sark shook his head. "No, send it to the storage room and send all the workers away. I will go through the mess myself tonight."  
  
Andres pursed his lips together. "Sir, if I may say so, you look like you haven't slept in two days…"  
  
"I haven't slept in three days actually, except for a few hours, but it doesn't matter. I'm going to the storage room now. Make sure that everyone has left. I want to do it alone."  
  
Sark watched as Andres nodded and left. He made sure the door was fully closed before he allowed himself to collapse into his chair. He held his head in his hands and for the first time in perhaps over seventy years, he felt tears forming in his eyes.  
  
He quickly brushed them away and stood up. I'm not doing this here, he thought to himself. Reaching into reserves he never knew he had, Sark steadied himself and then turned and exited his office.  
  
…  
  
_Several hours later…_  
  
Andres knew his boss; he had been serving him well for over twenty years. And though he had seen Mr. Sark angry on occasion, he had never seen him lose control. But, then he had never seen him frayed around the edges either.  
  
Andres wondered briefly if the latest turn of events was a cause for concern, but then he brushed it aside. Things were moving along, right on schedule.  
  
As he approached the storage room, he paused briefly at the door. If he opened it and Mr. Sark had found what had been taken, he knew that he could easily be on the wrong end of a pistol again, and not necessarily because his boss knew the extent of the deception that had taken place. But if he didn't check in, then he couldn't send his report to his true master. And Andres' true master did not like incomplete reports.  
  
So Andres listened at the door, but he didn't hear any noises. If Mr. Sark was still looking through the artifacts, then at least his temper had died down so that he wasn't throwing them about. This fact alone gave Andres the courage to open the door and brave a quick look around.  
  
In all the time that he had worked for Sark, Andres had seen many strange, wonderful and down right frightening things, but the sight in the storage room scared him more than anything else ever had.  
  
There were boxes and ruined artifacts thrown about haphazardly and entire shelves had been upturned. Priceless works of art, and rusted pieces of antiquity stood cast about or broken but in the center of it all, was Sark. He was passed out, sitting up against a large box, with the bottle of wine by his side. His head was leaning awkwardly against his shoulder and as Andres approached him quietly, he thought he could see the faint tracks of dried tears along his face.  
  
Andres pushed his fear aside and quickly made use of the situation that had presented itself. He quickly moved to Sark's side and found his left wrist. With sure movements, Andres turned off the biosensor that was part of Sark's watch and flinched as the small beep sounded from the sensor. He watched Sark's face for any signs of waking before deciding that it was safe to continue. Andres quickly searched Sark for his weapon but to his disappointment, Sark had come unarmed to the storage room. Andres quickly beat a retreat to the door. His real master would be very happy if he could put a bullet through Sark's head, on top of retrieving the girl, but he had no time to waste. He had to act fast and go back down to his quarters, get his own pistol and come back. Because even without a weapon, he doubted he could take on Sark when he was fully conscious.  
  
As Andres was about to exit he looked back at the sleeping form on the floor and felt his fear return. Mr. Sark had changed since the last time he had seen him, and that was never a good thing. Andres had grown to depend on his boss's stability and cool demeanor. Something was causing him to behave differently and he didn't have time to try and understand what that was. The temper…the tears…it was all very bizarre. And that meant that Andres couldn't quite predict Sark's actions any longer. Hence, the cold knot of fear forming in his stomach.  
  
But this was his chance, and Andres didn't plan on wasting it. So he quickly shut the door and raced to his room to get his weapon.   
  
As fate would have it though, the quiet sound of the door closing was enough destroy Andres' plan, and set the stage that had been prophesized over three hundred years ago.  
  
…  
  
Sark heard the click of the door from somewhere in his alcohol induced daze but it took him a moment to truly understand his surroundings. And as he looked around at the maze of destruction that he had helped contribute to, he felt his anger returning. Thankfully though, at least the self-pity that he had been wallowing was subsided and now all that was left was anger. And a burning desire to be done with it all.  
  
He forced himself up, brushed his pants off and kicked the empty bottle of wine away. Without anymore thought, he stormed out of the room and went to get Dawn. They were going to be done with this right now. No matter what.  
  
…  
  
Dawn stood in the center of the room as Sark stood slightly to her right. "So this will end now then?" she asked quietly.  
  
Sark nodded and finished injecting the small vial into her arm. He removed the needle and wiped her arm with a small cotton swab.  
  
Dawn looked around the room. It was a laboratory, but all of the equipment had been pushed off to the side, leaving a large empty space in the middle.  
  
"Do you remember the instructions that I gave you?" Dawn nodded but Sark continued anyways. "Start with the Summoning Melody that I showed you. It will bring forth all the souls that are linked within the Flute. I assume that they will be visible at that point but at the very least you should be able to feel them through the instrument. Start with your mother and father, they should be the easiest because they are closest to you. I showed you the basic Joining Melody, but somehow you are going to have to incorporate them into it. I'm not sure how, but I suspect it will be obvious to you when the time comes. After it's done, you have the option of releasing them from the Flute, or leaving them bound to it and to you. It's up to you."  
  
Dawn nodded and rubbed the last remaining sleep out of her eyes. She hadn't expected to be forced out of bed so soon, but truthfully, now that she was awake, she was happy to be doing this as soon as possible.  
  
She turned to Sark. "So who will have fulfilled the prophecy then? My grandmother, my mother or myself?" She didn't mean for her voice to sound so hard, but it came out brittle and sharp anyway.  
  
She watched as Sark's forehead twisted in momentary confusion at the change in topic, so she elaborated. "My father told me about the prophecy. It had my mother's face on it. But he also told me my mother looked a lot like my grandmother and that I looked a lot like the both of them. So now tell me, as I am about to bind everyone together, who has fulfilled all the prophecies? And did we ever really have a choice in the matter? Was this all predetermined at the time of our birth?"  
  
Sark sighed and moved closer. "Of course you have a choice in the matter. We all did. But the problem with prophecies is not that they take away your free will, it's that the choice is irrelevant. Your grandmother, your mother and now you will each have fulfilled the prophecy. But each of you did it not because of a choice in the matter but rather because of the tragic flaw within each of you."   
  
Sark raised his hand to stop Dawn from interrupting. His voice grew harder, his anger returning. "_The woman here depicted will possess unseen marks. Signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works...bind them with fury; a burning anger. She will render the greatest power unto utter desolation_."  
  
"Irina bound everyone together the moment that she confided in William Vaughn or maybe it was the moment that she made her pack with Arvin Sloane. I don't know. But she could never have done anything but. Why? Because she was proud. She knew she was smart enough to outsmart Sloane and all her old Russian bosses. But she was too proud to beg for help. Life would have turned out very differently if she had gone to Jack and told him everything. But that would have involved asking him for help. And Irina was incapable of that. And from what I know of Sydney's and Jack's life after she left them; she caused them a fair bit of desolation. As for Sydney, she bound everyone further onto this path the moment that she stole your father's blood. She spurned his love and let her anger consume her. Sydney had so very much anger in her all the time. Imagine what would have happened instead, if she had allowed Vaughn to help her? If she had remembered that she loved him? But I don't think she even remembered who she was at the end. I remember. I saw the burning anger in her face. She didn't even respond to her name anymore. A lot of good climbing Mount Subasio did her, if she wasn't even herself at the end. Tell me, didn't she cause her fair share of misery by dying?"  
  
"How do you know all this?" Dawn whispered.  
  
Sark shrugged. "I've been in the intelligence business too long and have had too much time on my hands not to put together all that I've seen."  
  
She watched him as he continued his tirade relentlessly. "But you forget that there were two other prophecies as well Dawn. Your father and his father were also in a prophecy. '_This man holds the secret to life and such also the secret of death. Hidden within him lies the code for both, because one cannot exist without the other. Though his blood has been shed for many, for nothing, a single drop of his blood can bring the greatest music to life'_. "  
  
"You never knew William Vaughn and neither did I but I think that his sin was probably sloth. He took the easy way out. He killed himself. No work required there. And he got to reap the benefits of being noble. But his blood bound Irina too. If he hadn't died, perhaps she would not have been constrained to the life she was. As for your father…well obviously his fault was lust. Oh, some might call it love, but it doesn't matter which. The point is that your father couldn't recover from the pain of losing Sydney. He obsessed about it. I know. I watched him. He loved her too much and because of that, he was willing to die for it. Hell, willing…he wanted to die, simply so that his body would stop aching for her loss. His blood bound you to the course that you're on and now you're going to bring the music to life."  
  
"But don't forget, I'm not free of this sick web either. '_My heir, the inheritor of my legacy and my would-be redeemer…My greatest prize… He will be a man once marked and yet also the man who will plunge the world into darkness. His very sign will extinguish the light of the world…Weep, weep, weep young children for the ending of an age!_' " Sark laughed tightly. "Weep, indeed."  
  
"And so we come to me. I guess you could say that my sin is gluttony is it not? I have done all of this," Sark waved his hand around him, "to indulge in my desire to know love. I've destroyed and conquered all so that I could have a taste of love. But some people are just not meant to know love, don't you think? Shouldn't I be able to live without it? I don't require it to live? Isn't that the definition of gluttony? Desiring things that you don't need to live? But because I did, I have fulfilled my own destiny. I have banished the only light that I ever had from my life. I have succeeded in driving you away. Because you are the light of my world…"  
  
Dawn listened to the silence as Sark paused momentarily. There was so much anger and bitterness between them, but she was helpless to stop him from continuing, even though she knew what was coming next. She didn't want to know what Sark was going to say next, but she was incapable of stopping him.  
  
"As for yourself, well your fault is envy, is it not?" The anger was back in Sark's voice, making it cold and unforgiving. "You've always envied your friends' normal lives and normal families. But mostly you've always envied the love that your father had for your mother. Haven't you? You've envied it and then felt ashamed that you could not inspire that much love within him. Not enough, to keep him alive anyway."  
  
Dawn trembled as he spoke, but he did not pause. "But your sin isn't what's driving you, it's the redemption of your sin. That's why you're doing this and that's why you can't just leave right now. Even knowing everything that I am telling you, though your fault is envy, you are doing this all to try and compensate for it. Unlike the rest of us. You are actually trying to be better than you are. Maybe that's why you're the last key to this puzzle…"  
  
Finally Dawn exploded in anger. "This works out very nicely for you doesn't it? Everyone has their own critical fault that prevented this from turning out exactly the way that it has? Well, you're right about me. You are. I do feel guilty for not being enough of a reason for my father to live, and my grandmother. And I will make it up to them by doing this. Consequences be damned. But you forgot about one sin. You forgot Greed. There are only six of us trapped in these prophecies, but there are seven deadly sins. So you see, it doesn't work out perfectly. And I know how that upsets you. Because maybe that means that this wasn't all meant to work out like this. Maybe it means that we are responsible for our actions even if they are a result of our faults and not directly our choices. Maybe we are accountable for everything that we do! Maybe I am going to fulfill this prophecy now, knowing that I am going to bring great desolation, and that doesn't matter to me. I am going to be doing this consciously and willfully, simply so that I can see it done, once and for all!"  
  
"And maybe, if everyone had been willing to take responsibility for their actions from the beginning, none of this would have been necessary."  
  
Dawn stared at Sark as her anger caused her to shake slightly. But she saw him looking at her sadly.  
  
"Maybe you're right. Maybe we are each responsible for the roles that we've played," he said quietly.  
  
Dawn turned away from him and went to stand in the center of the room alone.  
  
…  
  
Sark stood to the side and let the silence fall between them. Looking at Dawn as she stood alone, trying to compose herself, whatever was left of his heart shattered. He knew the role that he had played to bring her to this point. He also knew that when she found out exactly what he had done, there would be no redemption for him.  
  
He truly had lost her. And when she discovered his role in the death of her father and grandmother…well, she would have every reason in the world to do the same to him.  
  
And then perhaps this tangled web of fate would all be complete.  
  
Sark glanced down at his watch to check the time and froze.  
  
_…he will extinguish the light of the world…_  
  
But what if Dawn was right? What if they did have a choice in the role that they played? Maybe the rest of the world didn't have to suffer for his mistakes. Maybe…if this was to be his last act, he could in fact still redeem himself, even just a little.  
  
Looking back up at Dawn as she stood in the center of the room, Sark decided to freeze this memory of her forever in his mind.   
  
She was standing with her eyes closed and her head slightly back. Her arms were held out slightly from her body as she stood perfectly still. He was almost surprised at how strong and unafraid she looked. But then, she truly was Irina's granddaughter and Sydney's daughter.  
  
He watched her draw in a deep breath. As she opened her mouth, and a pure, haunting melody rose from her throat, Sark made his decision.  
  
Without taking his eyes off of her, he deactivated the biometric activator on his watch.  
  
...


End file.
